Cook describes Tongatabu Island as a little paradise. There was not an inch of wasted land. The beautifully made roads occupied no more space than was absolutely necessary, the fences were only about 4 inches wide and mostly consisted of useful trees or plants, and the ground round the houses and temples was planted with large and shady fruit trees, which besides the customary bread-fruits, coconuts, and the Tahiti _ahiya_, included shaddocks (a large kind of orange). The people also grew sugar cane and made pottery. They were of the same good-looking Polynesian type as those of Tahiti. The men applied dyes to their abundant crops of head hair, which either bleached it white or stained it red, or even blue. They had here the custom so widespread in North America, and amongst the Bushmen of South Africa and the people of Australia, of mutilating the fingers, especially the little finger, by cutting off the two first joints to mark their mourning for children, husbands, or wives. Cook also noticed the lepers of the Tonga archipelago, some of whom had the whole face and nose reduced to dreadful smooth scabs, surrounding nearly embedded eyes, and emitting an intolerable stench. From Tongatabu the two ships sailed to New Zealand, and on the journey the _Adventure_ was lost sight of. Cook, unable to wait (after searching for this ship along the coasts of New Zealand), left messages behind in bottles, buried in the camps to which they had most resorted, and then, on 26 November, 1773, sailed once more into the Southern Pacific to search for Antarctica. He reached ultimately to latitudes as high as 72°, where he found vast mountains of ice or land covered with ice. He had, in fact, probably reached the coast of Wilkes's Land. Some of the innumerable ice islands they passed on this southern voyage could not have been less than 200 feet in height, and terminated in peaks like cupolas or domes. Being now well satisfied that no land was to be found in this direction, except unapproachable through icefields and quite uninhabitable, Cook turned his vessel to the north to reach the Tropics once again, and on 13 March, 1774, anchored off Easter Island,[100] where the ship was at once met by a canoe paddled by two men, who brought out a bunch of plantains. This gave the crew of the _Resolution_ a good opinion of the Easter Islanders, who, as we know, were not unfamiliar with Europeans, having been visited already by Spaniards and Dutchmen. In fact, when they landed they found one man with a good broad-brimmed European hat on, whilst another wore a Spanish jacket, and a third a red silk handkerchief. The people, though very friendly, were rather thievish, not only towards the European, but each other. For instance, finding that Cook's party was very willing to buy sweet potatoes, they unhesitatingly raided a man's plantation near the landing place, and sold them for what they could get.