380 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
number there, they made their final settlement 
m Pictairn’s island. Their attempt to settle in 
Tubuai is celebrated in a poem by the late Lord 
Byron, called, “ The Island, or Christian and his 
Companions,” in which are recorded some affect¬ 
ing circumstances connected with the subsequent 
lives and ultimate apprehension of many of these 
unhappy men, and several facts relative to the 
Society and Friendly Islands. 
Tubuai was also the first of the South Sea 
Islands that gladdened the sight of the Mission¬ 
aries who sailed in the Duff. They saw the land 
on the morning of the 22d of February, 1797, near 
thirty miles distant; and as the wind was unfa¬ 
vourable, the darkness of night hid the island from 
their view before they were near enough distinctly 
to behold its scenery or inhabitants. I can enter 
in some degree into their emotions on this un¬ 
usually interesting day. All that hope had anti¬ 
cipated in its brightest moments, was no longer to 
be matter of uncertainty, but was to be realized or 
rejected. Such feelings I have experienced, and 
can readily believe theirs were of the same order as 
those of which I was conscious, when gazing on 
the first of the isles of the Pacific that we ap¬ 
proached. Theirs were probably more intense 
than mine, as a degree of adventurous enterprise 
was then thrown around Missionary efforts, which 
has vanished with their novelty. Our information, 
also, is more circumstantial and explicit than theirs 
could possibly have been. 
Tubuai is stated, in the Introduction to the 
Voyage of the Duff, to have been at that time but 
recently peopled by some natives of an island to 
the westward, probably Rimatara, who, when sail¬ 
ing to a spot they were accustomed to visit, were 
