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According to a belief not long ago universally prevalent, the mighty spirit Etua-Rono reigned over these islands before they were inhabited by men. Ardently desirous of seeing his country peopled, he was melancholy, and shed torrents of tears on the mountain Mou-na-roa, because he had no offspring; and his loving wife, the beautiful goddess Opuna, was not in a situation to console him.
Perhaps I was not born for a sailor: an accident, by no means calculated upon in my previous education, made me such in my fifteenth year. We sailed in the night past O Wahi, the principal of the Sandwich group, with its celebrated giant mountain Mou-na-roa.
Rono, enraged at this intelligence, threw the fire-god into the crater Kairuo, on the side of the mountain Mou-na-roa, where he still chafes in vain. The men now lived tranquilly on O Wahi, increased in numbers, and sought, by great sacrifices, to prove their love and thankfulness to their protector, Etua-Rono.
Our vessel had been fully prepared for encountering the violent and continued storms of the North, and I waited the return of our mineralogist, M. Hoffman, who had gone to O Wahi, for the purpose of climbing the mountain Mou-na-roa, in which however he did not succeed.
When we reached the tropic, a brisk trade-wind carried us quickly to the Sandwich Islands, and on the 12th of September we already saw the Mou-na-roa quite clearly, at a distance of a hundred and twenty-four miles, rising high above the horizon. On the following morning, we again dropped anchor before the harbour of Hanaruro, after a sail of thirty-five days from New Archangel.
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