Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/143

Rh fond; on her landing she met Hercules (whom for the future I shall call by his real name Dootahah), and showed him her presents. He became uneasy, and was not satisfied till he also had got a doll, which he now seemed to prefer to a hatchet; after this, however, dolls were of no value.

29th. My first business this morning was to see that the butcher was punished, as I promised Tubourai and Tamio, and of which they had not failed to remind me yesterday, when the crowd of people who were with us had prevented its being carried out. I took them on board the ship, where Captain Cook immediately ordered the offender to be punished; they stood quietly and saw him stripped and fastened to the rigging, but as soon as the first blow was given, interfered with many tears, begging that the punishment might cease, a request which the captain would not comply with.

At night I visited Tubourai, as I often did by candle-light, and found him and all his family in a most melancholy mood; most of them shed tears, so that I soon left them without being at all able to find out the cause of their grief. An old man had prophesied to some of our people that in four days we should fire our guns; this was the fourth night, and the circumstance of Tubourai crying over me, as we interpreted it, alarmed our officers a good deal; the sentries are therefore doubled, and we sleep to-night under arms.

30th. A very strict watch was kept last night, as intended, and at two in the morning I myself went round the point, finding everything perfectly quiet. Our little fortification is now complete; it consists of high breastworks at each end; the front palisades and the rear guarded by the river, on the bank of which we placed casks full of water: at every angle is mounted a swivel, and two carriage-guns pointed in the two directions by which the Indians might attack us out of the woods. Our sentries are also as well relieved as they could be in the most regular fortification.

About ten, Tamio came running to the tents; she seized my hand and told me that Tubourai was dying, and that I