POISONED BY TOBACCO. 



467 



picked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case, 

 and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box. 

 A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed 

 of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen 

 case was recovered ; but the opera-glass was not in it. After 

 another search, however, it was found and restored. The 

 savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied, 

 O-Tahiti,— " It is Tahiti." The present mode of writing it, there- 

 fore, — Otah&Ue, — is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling. 



Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of 

 Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from 

 the chief of the natives a present of the roof of a house, as his 

 contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the pro- 

 tection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the 

 object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants 

 insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it diffi- 

 cult to prosecute his labors ; for the flies covered his paper to 

 such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as 

 fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party 

 gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once 

 eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of 

 German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer 

 did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one 

 of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as 

 Bougainville had already had occasion to observe. 



One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of 

 his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something 

 which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut, 

 and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an atti- 

 tude of the utmost despondency. The islanders about him inti- 

 mated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up 

 with great care, which they said contained some of the poison 

 from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had 

 chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowed 



