CHAPTER LXXX.
QUEEN POMAREE IT is well to learn something about people before being introduced to them, and so we will here give some account of Pomaree and her family.
Every reader of Cook's Voyages must remember "Otto," who, in that navigator's time, was king of the larger peninsula of Tahiti.
Subsequently, assisted by the muskets of the Bounty's men, he extended his rule over the entire island.

This Otto, before his death, had his name changed into Pomaree, which has ever since been the royal patronymic.
He was succeeded by his son, Pomaree II., the most famous prince in the annals of Tahiti.

Though a sad debauchee and drunkard, and even charged with unnatural crimes, he was a great friend of the missionaries, and one of their very first proselytes.

During the religious wars into which he was hurried by his zeal for the new faith, he was defeated and expelled from the island.

After a short exile he returned from Imeeo, with an army of eight hundred warriors, and in the battle of Narii routed the rebellious pagans with great slaughter, and reestablished himself upon the throne.