Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/117

Rh his own charity in presenting her with a European gown. The proceedings were, however, marred by the alarming action of the surgeon who suddenly removed his wig, causing the "ladies of the court" to flee in terror from the house.

Purea, having recovered her composure, commanded her followers to present Wallis with great quantities of bread fruit and many pigs and believing her to be supreme over the entire Island he soon persuaded himself that she had ceded her realm to him. Accordingly he hoisted the British flag, saluted it with twenty-one guns, gave each of his men a drink of rum mixed with the water of a Tahitian brook and thus solemnly took possession under the name "King George the Third's Island."

As a matter of fact, Purea was vainly endeavoring to induce Wallis to visit her own district Papara, hoping through the influence of her supernatural guest to augment her own authority, for the natives believed his ship to be a floating island filled with vindictive demons who had control of thunder and lightning; but he understood not a word, and man-like assumed that her "inconsolable weeping" was due to admiration for himself and sorrow over his intended departure. Thus on July 27 did this British Æneas depart from his Polynesian Dido never more to see Tahiti.

Soon after Wallis's departure Louis Antoine de Bougainville independently discovered Tahiti. He was circumnavigating the globe, commanding the French frigate La Boudeuse, and the transport L'Etoile, and his 200 men were worn with the sea, scurvy threatening. Happy indeed were the French when, on April 2, 1768, from a distance of fifty miles they saw the peak of Orohena, as Wallis had sighted it eight months previously. Favored by the southern trades, they sailed along the shore to anchor on April 6, off Hitiaa; there to remain for a respite of ten days. In his fascinating "Voyage autour du Monde" published in Paris in 1771, Bougainville devoted two chapters to "Taiti," or "La Nouvelle Cythère," as he officially named it, furnishing an impassioned theme for French philosophy.

Bougainville was a keen and sympathetic observer and he made the most of his time from the moment when on April 4 the canoes ventured out to his ships, their chiefs bearing clusters of banana leaves in token of friendship. A hospital was established on shore for the scurvy-ridden sailors, and most friendly intercourse was established between them and the natives, who doubtless profited by their experience with Wallis to refrain from offending the new visitors. Yet, according to Cook, an infliction worse than Wallis's cannon was turned upon the unsuspecting islanders, for the ravages of a virulent infection of syphilis followed closely upon the departure of the French. Corruption and death had entered never to leave the land, and the once gigantic race of