i6o CAPTAIN COOK 



Breaths of exquisitely perfumed air greeted 

 the travellers. Dream-birds sang in the great 

 trees. Ducks swam on the mirror-like surface 

 of a lake, in which, in the deep blue of a glori- 

 ously clear sky, were reflected, like strange stars, 

 the golden fruit of the orange-trees. 



As at Tongatabou, the natives gathered on the 

 shore, offering the strangers enormous shad- 

 docks, coconuts and bread-fruit. Their com- 

 mercial instincts were expressed by incoherent 

 cries. 



As soon as he had landed, Cook saw an old 

 woman approach, accompanied by a really 

 beautiful girl. The former made the Captain 

 understand that she would be charmed if he 

 would marry her daughter. In spite of Cook's 

 refusal, she insisted, and as she could not per- 

 suade him to taste the delights of these exotic 

 hymeneals, she overwhelmed him with abuse, 

 and demanded, "what ever sort of man he could 

 be." 



Cook stolidly wrote in his Journal, "For the 

 girl certainly did not want beauty; which, how- 

 ever, I could better withstand than the abuses 

 of this worthy matron, and therefore hastened 

 into the boat." 



Patten, the Resolution's doctor, was the victim 

 of an adventure which is worth describing. 

 Having gone duck-shooting in the interior, he 



