The intercourse occurring with Europeans being so restricted, no wonderthat the inhabitants of the valley manifested so much curiosity withregard to us, appearing as we did among them under such singularcircumstances. I have no doubt that we were the first white men who everpenetrated thus far back into their territories, or at least the firstwho had ever descended from the head of the vale. What had brought usthither must have appeared a complete mystery to them, and from ourignorance of the language it was impossible for us to enlighten them. Inanswer to inquiries which the eloquence of their gestures enabled us tocomprehend, all that we could reply was, that we had come from Nukuheva,a place, be it remembered, with which they were at open war. Thisintelligence appeared to affect them with the most lively emotions.'Nukuheva motarkee?' they asked. Of course we replied most energeticallyin the negative.
Then they plied us with a thousand questions, of which we couldunderstand nothing more than that they had reference to the recentmovements of the French, against whom they seemed to cherish the mostfierce hatred. So eager were they to obtain information on this point,that they still continued to propound their queries long after we hadshown that we were utterly unable to answer them. Occasionally we caughtsome indistinct idea of their meaning, when we would endeavour by everymethod in our power to communicate the desired intelligence. At suchtimes their gratification was boundless, and they would redouble theirefforts to make us comprehend them more perfectly. But all in vain; andin the end they looked at us despairingly, as if we were the receptaclesof invaluable information; but how to come at it they knew not.
After a while the group around us gradually dispersed, and we wereleft about midnight (as we conjectured) with those who appeared to bepermanent residents of the house. These individuals now provided us withfresh mats to lie upon, covered us with several folds of tappa, and thenextinguishing the tapers that had been burning, threw themselves downbeside us, and after a little desultory conversation were soon soundasleep.