The next day canoes came out to the _Endeavour_ evidently filled with people of superior rank. Two of these chiefs came on board and selected Cook and Banks to be their special friends, carrying out this ceremony by taking off most of their clothing and putting it about the shoulders of the Englishmen. Return presents were given to them, and after a long row in the boats of the _Endeavour_ the notabilities of that ship accompanying their Tahitian friends landed and went to a house of much greater length and size than any they had yet seen. Here was found a chief by the name of Tutaha, who presented them with a cock and hen and pieces of perfumed bark cloth. In other houses they met the women, who received them with such extravagant demonstrations of affection that they were embarrassed. Soon afterwards another chief gave them a meal, which they ate with the greatest heartiness. It consisted of fish, bread-fruit, coconut, and bananas, cooked after the native fashion. They were enjoying this meal, though perhaps not quite so much the affectionate attentions of the native ladies (who kept plying them with coconut milk), when suddenly two of the officers complained that their pockets had been picked--a complaint, one would think, under the circumstances, they might have waived on such an occasion. However, Dr. Solander lost an opera glass, and Mr. Monkhouse, a surgeon, his snuff box. Complaint was at once made to the chief, and Banks somewhat aggressively jumped to his feet and struck the butt end of his gun on the ground. Immediately all the natives fled in a panic, with the exception of two or three chiefs and their wives. The principal personage amongst these at once took Mr. Banks by the hand and led him to a large quantity of cloth which lay at the other end of the house, offering it to him piece by piece, and intimating by signs that if that would atone for the wrong which had been done he might take all he saw. But this compensation was refused, and eventually the chief, after being absent for some time, returned with the missing snuff box and the case of the opera glass. This, however, upon being opened, was found to be empty. Whereupon the chief, catching Mr. Banks by the hand, led him rapidly along the shore for a mile or more, till he reached a house from which a woman came out and gave him a piece of cloth, which he hastily took from her and continued to press forward. Banks had been followed by Dr. Solander and Surgeon Monkhouse, and at last the whole party came to a place where they were received by a woman to whom the chief presented the piece of cloth and to whom the Englishmen gave a few beads. The beads and cloth being deposited on the floor, the woman went out, and in about half an hour she returned with the opera glass, and expressing the same joy as was now shown by the chief. She also returned the beads and the cloth, refusing to accept them.