confidence, and the wonted calmness of his style, we see the agency of that beneficent law in our system, by which we are preserved ignorant of the evils that every hour and moment of our time may bring over us.  Nor ought we to omit remarking as something peculiar, that Cook’s allusion to the present comfortable opinion and feelings of his associates on the failure of their labours in the northern hemisphere, founded, no doubt, on the general expression of satisfaction, serves as a material aggravation, in the way of contrast, to our conceptions of their subsequent distress and grief, under the calamity of his most afflicting death.—­E.]

CHAPTER V.

CAPTAIN KING’S JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS ON RETURNING TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.[1]

SECTION I.

Description of Karakakooa Bay.—­Vast Concourse of the Natives.—­Power of the Chiefs over the inferior People.—­Visit from Koah, a Priest and Warrior.—­The Morai at Kakooa described.—­Ceremonies at the Landing of Captain Cook.—­Observatories erected.—­Powerful Operation of the Taboo.—­Method of Salting Pork in Tropical Climates.—­Society of Priests discovered.—­Their Hospitality and Munificence.—­Reception of Captain Cook.—­Artifice of Koah.—­Arrival of Terreoboo, King of the Island.—­Returned by Captain Cook.

[Footnote 1:  The reader is informed once for all, that the notes to the remainder of this voyage, to which no signature is attached, are to be considered as forming a part of Captain King’s own publication.—­E.]

Karakakooa Bay is situated on the west side of the island of Owhyhee, in a district called Akona.  It is about a mile in depth, and bounded by two low points of land, at the distance of half a league, and bearing S.S.E. and N.N.W. from each other.  On the north point, which is flat and barren, stands the village of Kowrowa; and in the bottom of the bay, near a grove of tall cocoa-nut trees, there is another village of a more considerable size, called Kakooa; between them runs a high rocky cliff, inaccessible from the sea shore.  On the south side, the coast, for about a mile inland, has a rugged appearance; beyond which the country rises with a gradual ascent, and is overspread with cultivated enclosures and groves of cocoa-nut trees, where the habitations of the natives are scattered in great numbers.  The shore, all round the bay, is covered with a black coral rock, which makes the landing very dangerous in rough weather, except at the village of Kakooa, where there is a fine sandy beach, with a morai, or burying-place, at one extremity, and a small well of fresh water at the other.  This bay appearing to Captain Cook a proper place to refit the ships, and lay in an additional supply of water and provisions, we moored on the north side, about a quarter of a mile from the shore, Kowrowa bearing W.N.W.