waked in the confusion and stood by him, with a charge
not to suffer it to be stolen, he betook himself again
to rest, declaring himself perfectly satisfied with
the pains that Tootahah and Oberea had taken to recover
his things, though they had not been successful.
As it cannot be supposed that in such a situation
his sleep was very sound, he soon after heard music,
and saw lights at a little distance on shore:
This was a concert or assembly, which they call a
Heiva,
a common name for every public exhibition; and as
it would necessarily bring many people together, and
there was a chance of my being among them with his
other friends, he rose, and made the best of his way
towards it. He was soon led by the lights and
the sound to the hut where I lay, with three other
gentlemen of our party; and easily distinguishing us
from the rest, he made up to us more than half naked,
and told us his melancholy story. We gave him
such comfort as the unfortunate generally give to
each other, by telling him that we were fellow-sufferers;
I showed him that I was myself without stockings,
they having been stolen from under my head, though
I was sure I had never been asleep, and each of my
associates convinced him, by his appearance, that he
had lost a jacket. We determined, nevertheless,
to hear out the concert, however deficient we might
appear in our dress; it consisted of three drums, four
flutes, and several voices: When this entertainment,
which lasted about an hour, was over, we retired again
to our sleeping-places; having agreed that nothing
could be done toward the recovery of our things till
the morning.
We rose at day-break, according to the custom of the
country; the first man that Mr Banks saw was Tupia,
faithfully attending with his musquet; and soon after,
Oberea brought him some of her country clothes as a
succedaneum for his own; so that when he came to us
he made a most motley appearance, half Indian and
half English. Our party soon got together, except
Dr Solander, whose quarters we did not know, and who
had not assisted at the concert: In a short time
Tootahah made his appearance, and we pressed him to
recover our clothes; but neither he nor Oberea could
be persuaded to take any measure for that purpose,
so that we began to suspect that they had been parties
in the theft. About eight o’clock, we were
joined by Dr Solander, who had fallen into honester
hands, at a house about a mile distant, and had lost
nothing.
Having given up all hope of recovering our clothes,
which indeed were never afterwards heard of, we spent
all the morning in soliciting the hogs which we had
been promised; but in this we had no better success:
We therefore, in no very good humour, set out for the
boat about twelve o’clock, with only that which
we had redeemed from the butcher and the cook the
night before.