198 CAPTAIN COOK 



made him understand by signs that he wished to 

 know the use of it. The Indian fetched a piece 

 of wood which he drove into the ground, and 

 going back about twenty paces, threw his stick 

 at it several times without hitting the mark. 

 Omai, the young Tahitian whom Captain Fur- 

 neaux had taken to London, where he had been 

 made so much of, and whom Cook had brought 

 with him from England in order to repatriate 

 him, wished to show these people, whom he re- 

 garded as poor savages, that his weapons were 

 much superior to theirs. He took a gun, and, 

 aiming at the mark, hit it at the first shot. The 

 unhappy natives bolted for the woods in terror. 

 It should be said that Van Diemen's Land or 

 Tasmania had only twice been visited by Euro- 

 peans when Cook landed there, for since Tasman 

 had discovered it in 1642, only Captain Fur- 

 neaux had touched at the island with the 

 Adventure in 1773. 



The terror which had seized the natives at 

 Omai's shot was not, fortunately, transmitted to 

 their compatriots, for on the next day about 

 twenty of them approached the Englishmen 

 without manifesting the least fear. Cook gave 

 them some necklace beads and a medal, and this 

 present was received by them with manifest 

 satisfaction. 



King, the second lieutenant of the Resolution, 



