When the king learned
that Cook was to leave the bay early in February, a royal proclamation
gathered presents for the ships; and Cook responded by a public display
of fireworks.
Now it is a sad fact that when a highly civilized people meet an
uncivilized people, each race celebrates the occasion by appropriating
all the evil qualities of the other. Vices, not virtues, are the first
to fraternize. It was as unfair of Cook's crew to judge the islanders
by the rabble swarming out to steal from the ships, as it would be for
a newcomer to judge the people of New York by the pickpockets and
under-world of the water front. And it must not be forgotten that the
very quality that had made Cook successful--the quality to dare--was a
danger to him here. The natives did not violate the sacred _taboo_,
which the priest had drawn round the white men's quarters of the grove.
It was the white men who violated it by going outside the limit; and
the conduct of the white sailors for the sixteen days in port was
neither better nor worse than the conduct of sailors to-day who go on a
wild spree with the lowest elements of the harbor.
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