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i'OKTER'S JOURNAL* 



have been brought from Ootoopoo, an island which is sup* 

 posed by the natives to be situated somewhere to the 

 windward of La Magdalena. 



None of our navigators have yet discovered an island of 

 that name, so situated. But in examining the chart of 

 Tupia, that native of the island of Ulitea, who left it with 

 Captain Cook on his first voyage, we find nearly in the 

 place assigned by the natives of Kooaheevah to Ootoopoo^ 

 an island called Ootoo, Po, which signifies night, black, or 

 dark, may be an addition of our islanders, or an omission of 

 Tupia^s, This chart, although not drawn with the accuracy 

 which could be expected from our hydrographers, was 

 nevertheless constructed by Sir Joseph Banks under the 

 direction of Tupia, and was of great assistance to Cook 

 and other navigators in discovering the islands he has 

 named. He had himself visited upwards of eighty, of 

 which he gave the names, and among others, he has named 

 the islands composing the Marquesas group, as they are 

 called by the natives. As this was done on the first voyage 

 of Cook, and as they were not known to Europeans before 

 that period, but by the name of saints, which the Spaniards 

 gave them, it could not have been from those he derived 

 his knowledge of them, but from some of the navigators 

 of this great nation. Tupia, although the greatest voyager 

 of his nation, does not pretend that he ever was so far to 

 windward. The intercourse between the most distant of 

 those islands does not seem difficult, or even rare, to the 

 natives, although to us it may seem so extraordinary. We 

 are apt to forget that those islands are situated in an ocean 

 seldom troubled by tempests, and from its remarkable 

 serenity, denominated the Pacific. Of the existence of 

 Ootoo or Ootoopoo, there cannot be a doubt. Tupia receiv- 

 ed such information from the accounts of other navigators, 

 as enabled him to give it a position on his chart near fifty 

 years ago, and the position now ascribed to it by Gattanewa, 

 differs little from that of Tupia, 



Of Nookuahe and Kappenooa, which lay four days sail to 

 leeward of Madison's Island, I know not how they obtain- 

 ed their information. But the island of Pooheka, they 

 say they have seen, of a clear day, from the heights of 

 Robert's Island, and the smoke from the fires they say are 

 frequently visible. Four days sailing, agreeably to the 



