The command was therefore conferred on Lieutenant James Cook, an officer of undoubted ability, and well versed in astronomy and the theory and practice of navigation, with whom the Royal Society associated Mr. Charles Green, who had long been assistant to Dr. Bradley, the astronomer royal, to aid him in the observation of the transit.  Mr. Banks, a private gentleman of good fortune, who afterwards became the valuable and distinguished President of the Royal Society, and Dr. Solander, a Swedish gentleman of great acquirements, particularly in natural history, accompanied Lieutenant Cook on this interesting voyage.  The islands of Marquesas de Mendoza, or those of Rotterdam or Amsterdam, were proposed by the Royal Society as proper places for making the observation.  While fitting out, however, Captain Wallis returned from his expedition, and strongly recommended as most suitable for the purpose, Port Royal Harbour, on an island he had discovered, to which he had given the name of ‘King George’s Island,’ and which has since been known by its native name, Otaheite or Tahite.[1]

This lovely island is most intimately connected with the mutiny which took place on board the Bounty, and with the fate of the mutineers and their innocent offspring.  Its many seducing temptations have been urged as one, if not the main, cause of the mutiny, which was supposed, at least by the commander of that ship, to have been excited by—­

     Young hearts which languish’d for some sunny isle,
     Where summer years, and summer women smile,
     Men without country, who, too long estranged,
     Had found no native home, or found it changed,
     And, half uncivilized, preferr’d the cave
     Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave.

It may be proper, therefore, as introductory to the present narrative, to give a general description of the rich and spontaneous gifts which Nature has lavished on this once ’happy island;’—­of the simple and ingenuous manners of its natives,—­and of those allurements which were supposed, erroneously however, to have occasioned the unfortunate catastrophe alluded to;—­to glance at

     The nymphs’ seducements and the magic bower,

as they existed at the period of the first intercourse between the Otaheitans and the crews of those ships, which carried to their shores, in succession, Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook.

The first communication which Wallis had with these people was unfortunately of a hostile nature.  Having approached with his ship close to the shore, the usual symbol of peace and friendship, a branch of the plantain tree, was held up by a native in one of the numerous canoes that surrounded the ship.  Great numbers, on being invited, crowded on board the stranger ship, but one of them, being butted on the haunches by a goat, and turning hastily round, perceived it rearing on its hind legs, ready to repeat the blow, was so terrified at the appearance of this strange animal, so different from any he had ever seen, that, in the moment of terror, he jumped overboard, and all the rest followed his example with the utmost precipitation.