THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
201 
famine and fatigue. Four men only furvived, when the 
canoe overfet; and then the perdition of this fmall rem¬ 
nant feemed inevitable. However, they kept hanging by 
the fide of their veffel, during fome of the laft days, till 
Providence brought them in light of the people of this 
illand, who immediately fent out canoes, took them off' 
their wreck, and brought them alhore. Of the four who 
were thus faved, one was lince dead. The other three, who 
lived to have this opportunity of giving an account of their 
almoft miraculous tranfplantation, fpoke highly of the kind 
treatment they here met with. And fo well fatisfied were 
they with their lituation, that they refufed the offer made 
to them by our gentlemen, at Omai’s requeft, of giving 
them a paffage on board our fhips, to reftore them to their 
native illands. The limilarity of manners and language, 
had more than naturalized them to this fpot; and the frelh 
connexions which they had here formed, and which it 
would have been painful to have broken off, after fuch a 
length of time, fufficiently account for their declining to 
revilit the places of their birth. They had arrived upon 
this illand at lead: twelve years ago. For I learnt from Mr. 
Anderfon, that he found they knew nothing of Captain 
Wallis’s vilit to Otaheite in 1765 ; nor of feveral other me¬ 
morable occurrences, fuch as the conqueft of Ulietea by 
thofe of Bolabola, which had preceded the arrival of the 
Europeans. To Mr. Anderfon I am alfo indebted for their 
names, Orououte, Otirreroa, and Tavee; the lirft, born at 
Matavai in Otaheite ; the fecund, at Ulietea; and the third 
at Huaheine. 
The landing of our gentlemen on this illand, though 
they failed in the objeff of it, cannot but be conlidered as 
a very fortunate circumftance. It has proved, as we have 
Vol. I. D d feen, 
