ven, and
most of the potatoes had been dug up.

All the time of the ship's stay a friendly intercourse was kept up with
the natives. The best way of securing peace with savages, Captain Cook
observes, is by first convincing them of your superiority, and then by
being always on your guard. A regard for their own safety will then
prevent them from being unanimous in forming any plan to attack you,
while strict honesty and kindly treatment will gain their friendship.
These principles mainly guided the great navigator in his intercourse
with the savages he visited, and it was owing to this that he was so
long able to pursue his useful discoveries.

He had ample evidence on this occasion of the savage character of the
people by whom he was surrounded. A party of them had gone away on a
war expedition, and returned with the body of a youth whom they had
killed. Most of the body had been eaten, when one of the officers
brought the head and a portion of the flesh on board. This latter was
boiled and eaten by one of the natives with avidity, in the presence of
Captain Cook and most of the officers and ship's company. This horrid
proceeding had such an effect on some of the men, as well as on the
captain, as to make them sick. [Note 2.] It had a still greater effect
on the native of Otaheite, Oedidee. He at first became perfectly
motionless, and looked the personification of horror. When aroused from
this state he burst into tears, and continued to weep and scold by
turns, telling the New Zealanders that they were vile men, and that he
would no longer be their friend. He would not suffer them to touch him.
He used the same language to one of the crew who tasted the flesh, and
refused to accept or to touch the knife with which it had been cut. It
would be difficult to paint more perfectly than Captain Cook has done,
in the above description, the natural horror felt by human beings when
first becoming aware of the existence of cannibalism. It must be
remembered that the people of Otaheite and those of New Zealand
evidently sprang from the same race; and it is remarkable that the
latter should have become addicted to such an abominable practice, while
the former viewed it with unmitigated horror. Captain Cook says that he
did not suppose the New Zealanders to have commenced the practice for
want of food, as their coasts supplied a vast quantity of fish and
wild-fowl, and they had also numerous dogs which they ate. Th