Great injustice has been done to the women of Otaheite, and the Society Isles, by those who have represented them, without exception, as ready to grant the last favour to any man who will come up to their price. But this is by no means the case: the favours of married women, and also the unmarried of the better sort, are as difficult to be obtained here, as in any other country whatever. Neither can the charge be understood indiscriminately of the unmarried of the lower class, for many of these admit of no such familiarities. That there are prostitutes here, as well as in other countries, is very true, perhaps more in proportion, and such were those who came on board the ships to our people, and frequented the post we had on shore. By seeing these mix indiscriminately with those of a different turn, even of the first rank, one is, at first, inclined to think that they are all disposed the same way, and that the only difference is in the price. But the truth is, the woman who becomes a prostitute, does not seem, in their opinion, to have committed a crime of so deep a dye as to exclude her from the esteem and society of the community in general. On the whole, a stranger who visits England might with equal justice, draw the characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. I must, however, allow that they are all completely versed in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their conversation. It is, therefore, no wonder that they have obtained the character of libertines. To what hath been said of the geography of these isles, in the narrative of my former voyage, I shall now only add, that we found the latitude of Oaiti-piha bay, in Otaheite, to be 17° 46ʹ 28ʺ south, and the longitude 0° 21ʹ 25-1/2ʺ east from Point Venus; or 149° 13ʹ 24ʺ west from Greenwich. The difference both of latitude and longitude, between Point Venus and Oaiti-piha, is greater than I supposed it to be, when I made the circuit of the island in 1769, by two miles, and 4-3/4 miles respectively. It is, therefore, highly probable that the whole island is of a greater extent than I, at that time, estimated it to be. The astronomers set up their observatory and made their observations on Point Venus, the latitude of which they found to be 17° 29ʹ 13ʺ south. This differs but two seconds from that which Mr. Green and I found; and its longitude, viz. 149° 34ʹ 49-1/2ʺ west, for any thing that is yet known to the contrary, is as exact. Mr. Kendal’s watch was found to be gaining on mean time 8ʺ 163 per day, which is only 0ʺ 142 less than at Queen Charlotte’s Sound, consequently its error in longitude was trifling. BOOK II. FROM OUR DEPARTURE FROM THE SOCIETY ISLES, TO OUR RETURN TO, AND LEAVING THEM THE SECOND TIME. CHAP. I.