Wallis, 1767 ; an encounter as quick as …a gunshot ! samuel Wallis left plymouth, england, on august 22, 1766 on board hMs dolphin in the company of the swallow and the prince Frederick. there were more than a hundred men and also animals on his vessel. the three captains had a secret mission ; to discover the terra australis incognita that should lie between cape horn and new zealand. The prince Frederick underwent severe damage from January 1767 onwards and was forced to giveup her mission ; her cargo was unloaded on the swallow and the dolphin, then she sailed back to england. the two remaining ships passed the Magellan strait but lost sight of each other because of poor weather conditions. Wallis had failed to give the instructions when faced with such a situation so philip carteret, captain of the swallow, not knowing what to do decided to continue his route and went back to england in march 1769. he met louis Antoine de Bougainville in south Atlantic while Wallis kept his route further south. on June 17, 1767, the island Meheti’a was in sight ; Wallis namedher oznaburg in honor of prince,-e-:1‘...e. r -.:r ? ">  : , -.- ".':. 7:%:>:.".,':...1 ".i.,  : rde. ué.214.1:e.a...en.e'der 2: ; :‘‘:›as‹...1.Wee. ` -En= menai if ely. jr,':.,e -.:e:.i.'m I :..-' ; ' ; 'k..1-1 infrarrip "urrer Vieleell 0..arutrd <:10:) .< -A.:Lui..., 44.y.-4.‹e efr24e12 d.:..,1..:1  : 5"...".}, il représentation De 1595 Montrant le viCToriA, une caraque espaGnole de l’expédiTion de mAgellAn, qui FuT le premier nAvire À FAire le Tour du MonDe. D’une lonGueur De 28M, il accueillait 42 Marins/represeNTATioN oF 1595 showiNg The viCToriA, A spANish CArAque oF The MAgellAN expediTioN, whiCh wAs The FirsT ship To CirCuMNAvigATe The world. p.Bacchet culture Frederick. on the evening of June 18, they eventually caught sight of the peninsula of Tahiti with relief ; they had fulfilled their mission and were facing the much-coveted terra australis incognita…or so they thought… the population seemedvery dense ; the boatswain counted approximately a hundred and fifty canoes witheight hundred rowers around the ship. The mountains looked cultivated and on the shores teeming with people many houses could be seen. When the tahitians came on board the British quickly felt invaded and fired the first gunshots before going away. they cast anchor in Matavai Bay two days later… Ancient Tahitian society Tahiti was not cut off from the other islands of the pacific when samuel Wallis discovered her by chance in 1767. after leaving their original land in south-east asia, the polynesians had sailed across half the pacific to settle new lands ; they had traveled aboard their big double canoes with their traditional skills and culture. contacts had been made with the other islands,either for alliances or to trade goods and services. as a matter of fact, contacts with islands located far off the limits of what is now called French polynesia are still remembered in traditional myths and legends. When the British arrived in 1767, the tahitian society was divided into mata’eina’a –meaning territories and their people- under the authority of chiefs called ari’i. the hui ari’i madeup the highest social class, then came lesser rank chiefs - ra’atira, to’ofā and’īato’ai. at the lower end of the social scale there were manahune, and teuteu (servants), vao and tītī (sorts of slaves). We can’t know for sure how many inhabitants there were when the first europeans arrived as the first census was carried out by missionaries only in 1829, and the gaps between the estimates are sometimes huge because of the counting methods used ; some europeans visitors based their estimates on the number of rowers, others on the islanders’explanations even though they did not quite understand their language. la FAmeuse BAie de MataVai à tahiti, où Wallis Jeta l’ancre Du Dolphin en 1767/The FAMous MATAvAi BAy iN TAhiTi where wAllis CAsT The ANChor oF The dolphiN iN 1767. 81