1773.
April.
return for so valuable an acquisition. We endeavoured to enter into conversation; but, though Captain Cook had taken Gibson, the corporal of marines, with him for that purpose, he being supposed to know more of the language[1] than any other person on board, yet all our attempts to be understood proved fruitless, because it seemed this family had a peculiar harshness of pronunciation. We therefore took leave of them, and proceeded to survey different parts of the bay, fishing at intervals, shooting birds, and collecting shells, and other marine productions among the rocks. The weather was cloudy all this time, though it did not rain where we were; but when we returned to our ship's cove, we were told it had rained there incessantly in our absence. The same observation we had frequent opportunities of making during our sojourn in Dusky Bay. The probable cause of this difference of weather at such little distances, are the high mountains which run along the south shore of the bay, gradually sloping towards the west cape. These mountains being almost constantly capped with clouds, our cove, which lay immediately under, and was surrounded by them, was of course exposed to the vapours, which perpetually appeared moving with various velocities along the sides of the hills, involving the tops of the trees over which they passed in a
- ↑ He was particularly versed in the language of the isle of O-Taheitee; and there is only a difference of dialect between it and the language of New Zeeland.
kind
