POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
61 
It is rather an open bay, and although screened from 
the prevailing trade winds, is exposed to the southern 
and westerly gales, and also to a considerable swell 
from the sea. The long flat neck of land which forms 
its northern boundary, was the spot on which Captain 
Cook erected his tents, and fixed his instruments for 
observing the transit of Venus ; on which account, it has 
ever since been called Point Venus. Excepting those 
parts enclosed as gardens, or plantations, the land near 
the shore is covered with long grass, or a species of con¬ 
volvulus, called by the natives ; numerous clumps 
of trees, and waving cocoa-nuts, add much to the beauty 
of its appearance. A fine stream, rising in the interior 
mountains, winds through the sinuosities of the head of the 
valley, and, fertilizing the district of Matavai, flows through 
the centre of this long neck of land, into the sea. 
Such, without much alteration, in all probability, was 
the appearance of this beautiful hay, when discovered 
by Captain Wallis, in 1767 ; and two years after, when 
first visited by Captain 'Cook; or when Captain Bligh, 
in the Bounty, spent six months at anchor here in 
1788 and 1789; when Captain Vancouver arrived in 1792 ; 
Captain New, of the Daedalus, in 1793; and Captain 
Wilson, in the Duff, who anchored in the same bay on 
the 6th of March, 1797- 
It was on the northern shores of this bay, that eighteen 
of the Missionaries, who left England in the Duff, first 
landed, upwards of thirty years ago. They were 
-the messengers 
Of peace, and light and life, whose eye unsealed 
Saw up the path of immortality. 
Far into bliss. Saw men, immortal men. 
Wide wandering from the way, eclipsed in night, 
