For some time before we arrived at New Zealand, Omai had expressed a desire to take one of the natives with him to his own country. We had not been there many days, before he had an opportunity of being gratified in this; for a youth about seventeen or eighteen years of age, named Taweiharooa, offered to accompany him; and took up his residence on board. I paid little attention to this at first, imagining that he would leave us when we were about to depart, and after he had got what he could from Omai. At length, finding that he was fixed in his resolution to go with us, and having learnt that he was the only son of a deceased chief, and that his mother, still living, was a woman much respected here, I was apprehensive that Omai had deceived him and his friends, by giving them hopes and assurances of his being sent back. I therefore caused it to be made known to them all, that if the young man went away with us, he would never return. But this declaration seemed to make no sort of impression. The afternoon before we left the Cove, Tiratoutou, his mother, came on board, to receive her last present from Omai. The same evening, she and Taweiharooa parted, with all the marks of tender affection that might be expected between a parent and a child, who were never to meet again. But she said she would cry no more; and, sure enough, she kept her word. For when she returned the next morning, to take her last farewell of him, all the time she was on board she remained quite cheerful, and went away wholly unconcerned. That Taweiharooa might be sent away in a manner becoming his birth, another youth was to have gone with him as his servant; and, with this view, as we supposed, he remained on board till we were about to sail, when his friends took him ashore. However, his place was supplied, next morning, by another, a boy of about nine or ten years of age, named Kokoa. He was presented to me by his own father, who, I believe, would have parted with his dog with far less indifference. The very little clothing the boy had, he stripped him of, and left him as naked as he was born. It was to no purpose that I endeavoured to convince these people of the improbability, or rather of the impossibility, of these youths ever returning home. Not one, not even their nearest relations, seemed to trouble themselves about their future fate. Since this was the case, and I was well satisfied that the boys would be no losers by exchange of place, I the more readily gave my consent to their going.