On the 30th, early in the morning, I sent a boat to one of the islands for celery, and while the people were gathering it, about twenty of the natives, men, women, and children, landed near some empty huts:  As soon as they were on shore, five or six of the women sat down, upon the ground together, and began to cut their legs, arms, and faces, with shells, and sharp pieces of talc or jasper, in a terrible manner.  Our people understood that their husbands had lately been killed by their enemies; but while they were performing this horrid ceremony, the men set about repairing the huts, with the utmost negligence and unconcern.  The carpenter having prepared two posts to be left as memorials of our having visited this place, I ordered them to be inscribed with the ship’s name, and the year and month; one of them I set up at the watering-place, hoisting the union flag upon the top of it; and the other I carried over to the island that lies nearest to the sea, called by the natives Motuara.  I went first to the village or Hippah, accompanied by Mr Monkhouse and Tupia, where I met with our old man, and told him and several others, by means of Tupia, that we were come to set up a mark upon the island, in order to show to any other ship which should happen to come thither, that we had been there before.  To this they readily consented, and promised that they never would pull it down:  I then gave something to every one present; and to the old man I gave a silver threepence, dated 1736, and some spike nails, with the king’s broad arrow cut deep upon them; things which I thought most likely to remain long among them:  I then took the post to the highest part of the island, and after fixing it firmly in the ground, I hoisted upon it the union-flag, and honoured this inlet with the name of Queen Charlotte’s Sound, at the same time taking formal possession of this and the adjacent country, in the name and for the use of his majesty King George the Third.  We then drank a bottle of wine to her majesty’s health, and gave the bottle to the old man who had attended us up the hill, and who was mightily delighted with his present.

While the post was setting up, we enquired of the old man concerning the passage into the eastern sea, the existence of which he confirmed; and then asked him about the land to the S.W. of the streight, where we were then situated:  This land, he said, consisted of two Whennuas or islands, which might be circumnavigated in a few days, and which he called Tovy Poenammoo; the literal translation of this word is, “the water of green talc:”  and probably, if we had understood him better, we should have found that Tovy Poenammoo was the name of some particular place where they got the green talc or stone of which they make their ornaments and tools, and not a general name for the whole southern district:  He said, there was also a third Whennua, on the east side of the streight, the circumnavigation of which would take up many moons:  This he called Eaheinomauwe; and to the lands on the borders of the streight he gave the name of Tiera Witte.  Having set up our post, and procured this intelligence, we returned on board the ship, and brought the old man with us, who was attended by his canoe, in which, after dinner, he returned home.