Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0337
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[Page 337]
Otahite
June 1769
situate on the westernmost point of the large bay before mentiond a large & most fertile flat on it was a river so large that we were obligd to ferry over in a canoe & our indian train to swim which they did with as much facility as a pack of hounds taking the water much in the same manner here were no houses but ruind remains of very large ones we proceeded along shore & found at last Waheatua setting near some pretty Canoe awnings which seemd to be intended to furnish him with lodgins he was a thin old man with very white hair & beard with him was a well looking woman of about 25 year old whose name was Toudidde we had heard her name mentiond very often & by what the people told she was a woman of much consequence in this part of the Island answering in some measure to what Oborea is in the other. from this place Tearre son to Waheatua acompanied us after having sold us a hog The countrey we went through was more cultivated than any thing we have seen in the Island the brooks were every where bankd into narrow channels with stone & the very sea was confind by a wall of stone also. The houses were not very large or very numerous but the large canoes which were hauld up every where along shore almost innumerable they were of a different built from those which we have seen at Oboreonoo longer & their heads & sterns higher upon these were kind of crotches which we suppos'd were to support large images many of which we saw hanging up in their houses their awnings also were supported on pillars. At almost every point was a morai or burying place & many within land They were