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At the Sandwich Islands, Kaahumanu, the gigantic old dowager queen a woman of nearly four hundred pounds weight, and who is said to be still living at Mowee was accustomed, in some of her terrific gusts of temper, to snatch up an ordinary sized man who had offended her, and snap his spine across her knee. Incredible as this may seem, it is a fact.
The vessel was the Parki, of Lahina, a village and harbor on the coast of Mowee, one of the Hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there drifted ashore. Her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest and goodliest looking gentleman in all the Sandwich Islands.
It was our commander's design, before he visited the other islands, to finish the survey of Owhyhee, in hopes of meeting with a road better sheltered than the bay he had just left. In case of not succeeding in this respect, he purposed to take a view of the south-east part of Mowee, where he was informed that he should find an excellent harbour.
Even these persons were enjoined to trade only for provisions and refreshments. While our navigators lay off Mowee, which was for some days, a friendly intercourse was maintained with the inhabitants. Another island was discovered on the 30th, which is called by the natives Owhyhee.
This paragraph concludes Captain Cook's journal; they were probably the last words he ever wrote. Captain King is our chief authority for the remaining transactions of the voyage. Among the chiefs who attached themselves to the English was a young man named Pareea, who introduced himself as an officer of the king of the island, then gone on a military expedition to Mowee.
The havoc was dreadful; more than a hundred, according to Young's account, were slain. After this signal act of vengeance, Captain Metcalf sailed from Mowee, and made for the island of Owyhee, where he was well received by Tamaahmaah. The fortunes of this warlike chief were at that time on the rise.
Captain Cook probably expected that by yielding to the natives, he should obtain greater facilities for trading and keeping up amicable relations with them. After this the King Terreeoboo, with his wife and child, came on board. He had previously paid the Resolution a visit, when the ships were off Mowee.
They first called in at Mowee, where the natives soon came out and appeared friendly, and traded with less suspicion than any of the South Sea Islanders they had met with before.
On January 24, 1779, the bay was again tabooed on account of the arrival of the king, Terreeoboo, who soon came off privately in a canoe, with his wife and children. He was found to be the same infirm old man who had come on board the Resolution when the ships were off Mowee. The next day the king came off in state, on board a large canoe, attended by two others.
"Though the French were the first who, in modern times, had landed on the island of Mowee, I did not think it my duty to take possession in the name of the King. The customs of Europeans on such occasions are completely ridiculous.
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