148 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



to keep his bed again, being afflicted v/itli some alarming symptoms. * * 

 My father ordered his Tahitian dog, the only one which still remained alive 

 after our departure from the Friendly Islands, to be hilled ; it was cut into 

 quarters which were served up to Captain Cook during several days, and 

 gave him some nourishment, as he could not venture to taste the ship's 

 provisions. By such small helps we succeeded in preserving a life upon 

 which the success of the voyage in a great measure depended." 



They succeeded, however, in taking alive to England one of the South 

 Sea dogs on their return from their second voyage. And this dog had been 

 a peculiar sufferer, for he (with others) had eaten of some very poisonous 

 fish while in the tropics, and, after severe and long suifermg, had nearly 

 died ; and he had also been repeatedly operated on, by inserting in his flesh 

 poison scra^Dcd from the points of the poisoned arrows of the islanders, 

 and yet he got over all ! " and was brought alive to England " — the first 

 and only one of his race ! 



I have already said, that at some of the Polynesian Islands, our early 

 voyagers found no dogs. J. R. Forster says ; — " In all the low islands they 

 have dogs (a race with long white hair), but no hogs ; at the Friendly 

 Islands, and at Tanna (New Hebrides), they had hogs but no dogs ; at the 

 Marquesas, also, they had hogs but no dogs ; while at New Caledonia they 

 had neither hogs nor dogs. We gave at Amsterdam (Tongatapu) and at 

 Tanna the first dogs ; at New Zealand the first hogs and fowls ; and at 

 New Caledonia we left a couple of dogs, and another of pigs. They must 

 formerly have had dogs at Amsterdam, because they knew the animal and 

 were acquainted with its name, Jairi, but have lost the species, as it should 

 seem, by some accident." G. Forster 's graphic description of this intro- 

 duction of the dog at Tongatapu is worthy of notice. He says : — " Early 

 the next morning Capt. Cook's friend, Ataka (the principal chief of the 

 islands) came on board in one of the first canoes and breakfasted with us. 

 * * * After breakfast the captains and my father prepared to return to 

 the shore with him ; but just as he was going out of the cabin he happened 

 to see a Tahitian dog running about the deck ; at this sight he could not 

 conceal his joy, but clapped his hands on his breast, and, turning to the 

 captain, repeated the word kuri near twenty times. We were much 

 surprised to hear that he knew the name of an animal which did not exist 

 in his country, and made him a present of one of each sex, with which he 

 went on shore in an ecstasy of joy. That the name of dogs should be 

 familiar with a people who are not xoossessed of them seems to prove either 

 that this knowledge has been propagated by tradition from their ancestors, 

 who migrated hither from other islands and the continent, or that they 

 have had dogs upon their island of which the race, by some accident, is 



