POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
269 
fatal to many of the people. It was a kind of influenza, 
affecting the lungs and throat; many attacked with it 
lost their voice. We suffered in common with the 
people, and I was obliged to relinquish all public 
duty for some weeks. This kind of calamity has been 
frequently experienced in the islands since they have 
been the resort of foreign shipping, though we are 
not aware that it prevailed before. A kind of dysen¬ 
tery appeared after the visit of Vancouver’s ship, which 
called at the islands in 1790, and proved fatal to a 
vast portion of the population. In the year 1800, the 
Britannia, a London vessel, anchored at Taiarabu. Two 
seamen absconded, and a disease followed, less fatal, but 
very distressing, and more extensive, as scarcely an indi¬ 
vidual escaped. 
These diseases have generally passed through the 
islands from the east to the west, in the direction of the 
trade winds. After the above appeared among the 
people, it was for some months confined to the Wind¬ 
ward Islands; and so general was its prevalence, that 
Pomare one day said to Mr. Nott, ^^If this had been a 
fatal or killing disease, like that from Vancouver’s ship, 
no individual would have survived.” 
As it began to subside, a canoe, called Hareaino, 
arrived from the Leeward Islands, and after remaining a 
week or two at Tahiti, returned to Huahine. Shortly 
after this, the people who had been in the canoe were 
attacked, and the disease ultimately spread as completely 
through this group, as it had through that at which the 
foreign vessel touched. Within the last two years, a 
disorder, in many respects similar to that left by the 
crew of Vancouver’s vessel, has again swept through the 
islands, and carried off numbers of the people. 
