The next day, our attention was for some time taken up with a report, industriously spread about by some of the natives, that a ship like ours had arrived at Annamooka since we left it, and was now at anchor there.  The propagators of the report were pleased to add, that Toobou, the chief of that island, was hastening thither to receive these new comers; and as we knew that he had actually left us, we were the more ready to believe there might be some foundation for the story of this unexpected arrival.  However, to gain some farther information, I went on shore with Omai, in quest of the man who, it was said, had brought the first account of this event from Annamooka.  We found him at the house of Earoupa, where Omai put such questions to him as I thought necessary; and the answers he gave were so clear and satisfactory, that I had not a doubt remaining.  But, just about this time, a chief of some note, whom we well knew, arrived from Annamooka, and declared that no ship was at that island, nor had been, since our leaving it.  The propagator of the report, finding himself detected in a falsehood, instantly withdrew, and we saw no more of him.  What end the invention of this tale could answer was not easy to conjecture, unless we suppose it to have been artfully contrived, to get us removed from the one island to the other.

In my walk on the 25th, I happened to step into a house, where a woman was dressing the eyes of a young child, who seemed blind, the eyes being much inflamed, and a thin film spread over them.  The instruments she used were two slender wooden probes, with which she had brushed the eyes so as to make them bleed.  It seems worth mentioning, that the natives of these islands should attempt an operation of this sort, though I entered the house too late to describe exactly how this female oculist employed the wretched tools she had to work with.

I was fortunate enough to see a different operation going on in the same house, of which I can give a tolerable account.  I found there another woman shaving a child’s head, with a shark’s tooth, stuck into the end of a piece of stick.  I observed that she first wetted the hair with a rag dipped in water, applying her instrument to that part which she had previously soaked.  The operation seemed to give no pain to the child, although the hair was taken off as close as if one of our razors had been employed.  Encouraged by what I now saw, I soon after tried one of these singular instruments upon myself, and found it to be an excellent succedaneum.  However, the men of these islands have recourse to another contrivance when they shave their beards.  The operation is performed with two shells, one of which they place under a small part of the beard, and with the other, applied above, they scrape that part off.  In this manner they are able to shave very close.  The process is, indeed, rather tedious, but not painful; and there are men amongst them who seemed to profess this trade.  It was as common, while we were here, to see our sailors go ashore to have their beards scraped off, after the fashion of Hepaee, as it was to see their chiefs come on board to be shaved by our barbers.