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- 1050
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z
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- text
- distinguished may be attributed to the singular fact, that their
existence was altogether unknown to the world until the year 1791, when
they were discovered by Captain Ingraham, of Boston, Massachusetts,
nearly two centuries after the discovery of the adjacent islands by the
agent of the Spanish Viceroy. Notwithstanding this, I shall follow the
example of most voyagers, and treat of them as forming part and parcel
of Marquesas.
Nukuheva is the most important of these islands, being the only one
at which ships are much in the habit of touching, and is celebrated as
being the place where the adventurous Captain Porter refitted his ships
during the late war between England and the United States, and whence he
sallied out upon the large whaling fleet then sailing under the enemy’s
flag in the surrounding seas. This island is about twenty miles in
length and nearly as many in breadth. It has three good harbours on its
coast; the largest and best of which is called by the people living
in its vicinity ‘Taiohae’, and by Captain Porter was denominated
Massachusetts Bay. Among the adverse tribes dwelling about the shores of
the other bays, and by all voyagers, it is generally known by the name
bestowed upon the island itself--Nukuheva. Its inhabitants have become
somewhat corrupted, owing to their recent commerce with Europeans, but
so far as regards their peculiar customs and general mode of life, they
retain their original primitive character, remaining very nearly in the
same state of nature in which they were first beheld by white men. The
hostile clans, residing in the more remote sections of the island, and
very seldom holding any communication with foreigners, are in every
respect unchanged from their earliest known condition.
In the bay of Nukuheva was the anchorage we desired to reach. We had
perceived the loom of the mountains about sunset; so that after running
all night with a very light breeze, we found ourselves close in with
the island the next morning, but as the bay we sought lay on its farther
side, we were obliged to sail some distance along the shore, catching,
as we proceeded, short glimpses of blooming valleys, deep glens,
waterfalls, and waving groves hidden here and there by projecting and
rocky headlands, every moment opening to the view some new and startling
scene of beauty.
Those who for the first time visit the South Sea, generally are
surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea.
From the vague accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people
are apt to picture to themselves enamelled and softly swelling plains,
shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks, and
the entire country but little elevated above the surrounding ocean. The
reality is very different; bold rock-bound coasts, with the surf beating
high against the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep
inlets, which open to the view thickly-wooded valleys, separated by the
spurs of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down towards
the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior, form the principal
features of these islands.
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