"Olee ?" he exclaimed, looking very profound in consequence of thoroughly understanding so subtile a question--"Oh! very olee--'tousand 'ear--more--big man when Capin Tootee (Captain Cook) heavey in sight." (In sea parlance, came into view.) This was a thing impossible; but adapting my discourse to the man, I rejoined--"Ah! you see Capin Tootee--well, how you like him ?" "Oh! he maitai: (good) friend of me, and know my wife." On my assuring him strongly that he could not have been born at the time, he explained himself by saying that he was speaking of his father, all the while.

This, indeed, might very well have been.
It is a curious fact that all these people, young and old, will tell you that they have enjoyed the honour of a personal acquaintance with the great navigator; and if you listen to them, they will go on and tell anecdotes without end.

This springs from nothing but their great desire to please; well knowing that a more agreeable topic for a white man could not be selected.

As for the anachronism of the thing, they seem to have no idea of it: days and years are all the same to them.
After our sunrise bath, Bob once more placed us in the stocks, almost moved to tears at subjecting us to so great a hardship; but he could not treat us otherwise, he said, on pain of the consul's displeasure.
How long we were to be confined, he did not know; nor what was to be done with us in the end.
As noon advanced, and no signs of a meal were visible, someone inquired whether we were to be boarded, as well as lodged, at the Hotel de Calabooza?
"Vast heavey" (avast heaving, or wait a bit)--said Bob--"kow-kow" (food) "come ship by by." And, sure enough, along comes Rope Tarn with a wooden bucket of the Julia's villainous biscuit.

With a grin, he said it was a present from Wilson: it was all we were to get that day.