The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World, Vol. III. Being the First of the Second VoyageCook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World, Vol. III. Being the First of the Second Voyage
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
When the musket and other things were brought in, every one then
present, or who came after, pretended to have had some hand in
recovering them, and claimed a reward accordingly. But there was no one
who acted this farce so well as Nuno, a man of some note, and well known
to us when I was here in 1769. This man came, with all the savage fury
imaginable in his countenance, and a large club in his hand, with which
he beat about him, in order to show us how he alone had killed the
thief; when, at the same time, we all knew that he had not been out of
his house the whole time.
Thus ended this troublesome day; and next morning early, Tee, Otoo’s
faithful ambassador, came again on board, to acquaint me that Otoo was
gone to Oparree, and desired I would send a person (one of the natives,
as I understood) to tell him that I was still his _Tiyo_. I asked him
why he did not do this himself, as I had desired. He made some excuse;
but I believe the truth was, he had not seen him. In short, I found it
was necessary for me to go myself; for while we thus spent our time in
messages, we remained without fruit, a stop being put to all exchanges
of this nature; that is, the natives brought nothing to market.
Accordingly, a party of us set out, with Tee in our company, and
proceeded to the very utmost limits of Oparree, where, after waiting
some considerable time, and several messages having passed, the king at
last made his appearance. After we were seated under the shade of some
trees as usual, and the first salutations were over, he desired me to
_parou_ (that is, to speak). Accordingly, I began with blaming him for
being frightened and alarmed at what had happened, since I had always
professed myself his friend, and I was not angry with him or any of his
people, but with those of Tiarabou, who were the thieves. I was then
asked, how I came to fire at the canoes? Chance, on this occasion,
furnished me with a good excuse. I told them, that they belonged to
Maritata, a Tiarabou man, one of whose people had stolen the musket, and
occasioned all this disturbance, and if I had them in my power, I would
destroy them, or any other belonging to Tiarabou. This declaration
pleased them, as I expected, from the natural aversion the one kingdom
has to the other. What I said was enforced by presents, which perhaps
had the greatest weight with them. Thus were things once more restored
to their former state; and Otoo promised, on his part, that the next day
we should be supplied with fruit, &c. as usual.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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