Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
vocal, denoted in what manner we should form an acquaintance with
her.
6
Small wonder that the Frenchmen enjoyed their two-week stay
among the exceedingly friendly Tahitians. The Polynesians' toler-
ance and desire to please seemingly knew no bounds. Even when
some of their men were murdered by the sailors, they did not turn
against their visitors. Yet, those visitors unwittingly ill repaid their
hosts. For shortly afterwards venereal disease, previously unknown,
spread among the islanders and they attributed its appearance to
the men of the
Boudeuse
and the
Étoile.
And when the ships, at last,
prepared to sail away, one of the young men begged to accompany
his new friends back to Europe.
*
Bougainville sailed due westwards on about the 15°S parallel of
latitude, stalked always by the spectre of scurvy. There was now no
lack of land; the voyagers were in the maze of the isles and atolls
that make up southern Polynesia. The French expedition, by cross-
ing the Pacific farther to the south than its predecessors, was able
to add several new discoveries to the charts. But the cautious cap-
tain rarely allowed his mariners to stop. The sight of natives bran-
dishing spears, or breakers smashing onto jagged reefs was suffi-
cient for him to order his helmsman to steer away into deeper wa-
ter. Just what was Bougainville up to? If we were to judge his actions
purely on the basis of his own written account we would have dif-
ficulty in making much sense of them. He emerges from his journal
as a strange mixture of contradictory aspirations and anxieties. His
perseverance in journeying due west was, he claimed, to discover
the east coast of New Holland (Australia).
Yet as soon as he encountered what he believed to be floating
vegetation - he made the assumption that it was a barren shore and
concluded, 'It would have been rashness to risk running in with a
coast from whence no advantage could be expected, and which one
