Within less than two months after leaving the Cape of Good Hope they cast anchor in Adventure Bay, in this island, which was then supposed to form a part of New-Holland. At first no inhabitants appeared, though, in sailing along the coast, they had observed columns of smoke ascending between the trees; but in a few days the natives, men, women, and children, came down to the beach, exhibiting in their persons the extreme of human wretchedness. They were black, with negro features, and woolly hair, besmeared with red ochre and grease, and went completely naked. Bread and fish, which were given them, they threw away; but of the flesh of birds they appeared fond. Their only weapon was a rude stick about three feet long, and sharpened at one end. They had no canoes, no houses, and appeared to be, to a great degree, destitute of curiosity.
Having laid in a sufficient stock of wood and water, the expedition proceeded to New-Zealand, where they remained a whole month, employed in laying in provisions, and in making observations on the character of the country and its inhabitants. They found the New-Zealanders a race differing in many respects from the natives of all the surrounding islands. Cannibalism of the most revolting kind flourished here in all its glory. The first thought of a man on beholding the face of a fellow-creature, like Fontenelle’s on seeing a flock of sheep in a meadow, was what nice eating he would make; and if they abstained from devouring their neighbours as well as their enemies, it was merely from fear of reprisals. Yet, united with propensities which, if found to be ineradicable, would justify their extermination, these people are said to possess a vehement affection for their friends, constancy in their attachments, and a strong disposition to love. It is very possible that both their good and bad qualities may have been misrepresented. The views and feelings of savages are not easily comprehended, and it is seldom that those who enjoy opportunities of observing them possess the genius to divine, from a few flitting and often constrained manifestations of them, the secret temper of the soul.
During their stay at this island one of the mariners formed an attachment for a young female cannibal; and, in order to wind himself the more effectually into her affections, he secretly caused himself to be tattooed, resolving, when the ships should sail, to make his escape, and relapse into the savage state with his mistress. I say relapse, because from that state we rose, and, whenever we can slip through the artificial scaffolding upon which we have been placed by philosophy and civil government, to that state we inevitably return. These two lovers, though deprived of the aids which language affords in the communication of thought and sentiments, contrived thoroughly to understand each other. When the time for the departure of the ships arrived, the sailor, tattooed, and dressed like a savage, was suffered to escape among the crowds of natives who were hurrying on shore; but when the roll was called to ascertain whether all hands were on board, his absence was discovered. A guard of marines, despatched in search of him by the command of Cook, dragged him from the arms of his savage mistress, who exhibited every token of anguish and inconsolable grief, and leaving her in loneliness and bitter disappointment on the beach, hurried the culprit on board to take his trial for desertion. In consideration of the motive, however, the commander humanely remitted the punishment of the offence; but it is extremely probable that his vigilance defrauded a party of New-Zealanders of a feast, for as soon as the ships should have been out of sight, these honest people would no doubt have consigned the sailor to their subterranean ovens.