CHAPTER XXIV 



In the days of Captain Cook — The first Spanish missionaries — Difficulties 

 of converting the heathens — Wars over Christianity — Ori-a-Ori, the 

 chief, friend of Stevenson — We read the Bible together — The church 

 and the himene. 



CAPTAIN COOK barely escaped shipwreck 

 here. The Bay of Tautira is marked on the 

 French map, "Mouillage de Cook," the anchor- 

 age of Cook. That indomitable mariner risked his ves- 

 sels in many dangerous roadsteads to explore and to pro- 

 cure fresh supplies for his crews. When he had ex- 

 hausted the surplus of pigs, cocoanuts, fowls, and green 

 stuff at one port, he sailed for another. Scurvy, the 

 relentless familiar of the sailor on the deep sea, made no 

 peril or labor too severe. At night Cook's ships ap- 

 proached Oati-piha, or Ohetepeha, Bay, as his log-writ- 

 ers termed this lagoon, from the Vaitapiha River, flow- 

 ing into it, and the dawn found them in a calm a mile and 

 a half from the reef. 



They put down boats and tried to tow off their ships, 

 but the tide set them in more and more toward the rocks. 

 For many hours they despaired of saving the vessels, 

 though they used "warping-machines," anchors, and 

 kedges. From my cook-house I saw where they had 

 struggled for their lives with breaker, current, and 

 chartless bottom. A light breeze off the land saved 

 them, and in another day they returned to "obtain co- 

 coanuts, plantains, bananas, apples, yams and other 



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