APR. 1769 DEATH OF MR. BUCHAN 79 



what we saw yesterday. At noon went ashore, the people 

 rather shy of us, as we must expect them to be, till by good 

 usage we can gain anew their confidence. 



Poor Mr. Buchan, the young man whom I brought out 

 as landscape and figure painter, was yesterday attacked by 

 an epileptic fit; he was to-day quite insensible, and our 

 surgeon gives me very little hopes of him. 



llth. At two this morning Mr. Buchan died ; about nine 

 everything was made ready for his interment, he being 

 already so much changed that it would not be practicable 

 to keep him even till night. Dr. Solander, Mr. Sporing, 

 Mr. Parkinson, and some of the officers of the ship, attended 

 his funeral. I sincerely regret him as an ingenious and 

 good young man, but his loss to me is irretrievable ; my 

 airy dreams of entertaining my friends in England with the 

 scenes that I am to see here have vanished. No account 

 of the figures and dresses of the natives can be satisfactory 

 unless illustrated by figures ; had Providence spared him a 

 month longer, what an advantage would it have been to my 

 undertaking, but I must submit. 



Our two friends, the chiefs of the west, came this morning 

 to see us. One I shall for the future call Lycurgus, from 

 the justice he executed on his offending subjects on the 14th ; 

 the other, from the large size of his body, I shall call Hercules. 

 Each brought a hog and bread-fruit ready dressed as a present, 

 for which they were presented in return with a hatchet and 

 a nail apiece. Hercules's present is the largest ; he seems 

 indeed to be the richest man. 



In the afternoon we all went ashore to measure out the 

 ground for the tents, which done, Captain Cook and Mr. 

 Green slept ashore in a tent erected for that purpose, 

 after having observed an eclipse of one of the satellites of 

 Jupiter. 



18th. The Indians brought down such great provision of 

 cocoanuts and bread-fruit to-day that before night we were 

 obliged to leave off buying, and acquaint them by signs that 

 we should not want any more for two days. Everything 

 was bought for beads, a bead about as large as a pea 



