[98] "The boughs of which their huts are made are either broken or split and tied together with grass in a circular form, the largest end stuck in the ground and the smaller parts meeting in a point at the top, after which they are covered with fern and bark, but so poorly done that they would hardly keep out a shower of rain. In the middle is the fireplace surrounded with heaps of mussel, scallop, and cray-fish shells, which I believe to be their chief food."--_Captain Furneaux_. The _Adventure_ after this repose skirted the coast and islands of Tasmania, as far as the opening of Bass's Strait and the string of islands named after Captain Furneaux. The last-named did not ascertain definitely that Tasmania was an island and not any longer a peninsula of Australia. From a point very near the Australian coast the _Adventure_ sailed straight across to New Zealand and duly rejoined the _Resolution_ in Queen Charlotte Sound. The crews of both ships felt "uncommon joy at their meeting" after a separation of fourteen weeks. From New Zealand the two ships made their way to Tahiti. On arriving there the Tahitians enquired about Tupia, the invaluable interpreter on the first voyage; but his friends and relations were quite satisfied when an account of his death at Batavia was given to them. Civil wars had brought about certain changes in the government of the island, and one of the most prominent chiefs known to the _Endeavour_ expedition was dead. This was Tutaha, and his mother came to meet Cook, bursting into tears as she seized him by both hands, and said: "Tutaha Tutayo no Tuti, matti!" (Tutaha, the friend of Cook, is dead). Goats were landed on this island to introduce a breed of valuable domestic animals. The expedition then passed on to the adjoining island of Huahine, and here they obtained another invaluable interpreter for their further voyages--Omai, a native of the island of Ulieta, and of rather negroid or Melanesian type, but a most useful member of Cook's second and third expeditions. In the interval between Cook's first and second visits to Tahiti a Spanish ship had called at that island and had introduced several noxious European diseases. The degeneration and depopulation of the Society Islands was about to begin, and even their food supplies were beginning to get short, owing to the demands made on them for pigs and fowls by European ships, and by the civil wars which caused much loss of live stock.