There being but little wind all the morning, it was nine o’clock before we could get to an anchor in the bay, where we moored with the two bowers.  Soon after we had anchored, Omai’s sister came on board to see him.  I was happy to observe, that, much to the honour of them both, their meeting was marked with expressions of the tenderest affection, easier to be conceived than to be described.

This moving scene having closed, and the ship being properly moored, Omai and I went ashore.  My first object was to pay a visit to a man whom my friend represented as a very extraordinary personage indeed, for he said that he was the god of Bolabola.  We found him seated under one of those small awnings which they usually carry in their larger canoes.  He was an elderly man, and had lost the use of his limbs, so that he was carried from place to place upon a hand-barrow.  Some called him Olla, or Orra, which is the name of the god of Bolabola, but his own proper name was Etary.  From Omai’s account of this person, I expected to have seen some religious adoration paid to him.  But, excepting some young plantain trees that lay before him, and upon the awning under which he sat, I could observe nothing by which he might be distinguished from their other chiefs.  Omai presented to him a tuft of red feathers, tied to the end of a small stick; but, after a little conversation on indifferent matters with this Bolabola man, his attention was drawn to an old woman, the sister of his mother.  She was already at his feet, and had bedewed them plentifully with tears of joy.

I left him with the old lady, in the midst of a number of people who had gathered round him, and went to take a view of the house said to be built by the strangers who had lately been here.  I found it standing at a small distance from the beach.  The wooden materials of which it was composed seemed to have been brought hither, ready prepared, to be set up occasionally; for all the planks were numbered.  It was divided into two small rooms; and in the inner one were a bedstead, a table, a bench, some old hats, and other trifles, of which the natives seemed to be very careful, as also of the house itself, which had suffered no hurt from the weather, a shed having been built over it.  There were scuttles all around, which served as air holes; and, perhaps, they were also meant to fire from with muskets, if ever this should have been found necessary.  At a little distance from the front stood a wooden cross, on the transverse part of which was cut the following inscription: 

  Christus vincit.

And on the perpendicular part (which confirmed our conjecture that the two ships were Spanish),

  Carolus iii. imperat. 1774.

On the other side of the post I preserved the memory of the prior visits of the English, by inscribing,

  Georgius Tertius Rex,
  Annis 1767,
  1769, 1773, 1774, & 1777.