It is situated in the latitude of 22° 15ʹ south; and in 210° 37ʹ east longitude. Its greatest extent, in any direction, exclusive of the reef, is not above five or six miles. On the north-west side, the reef appears in detached pieces, between which, the sea seems to break in upon the shore. Small as the island is, there are hills in it of a considerable elevation. At the foot of the hills, is a narrow border of flat land, running quite round it, edged with a white sand beach. The hills are covered with grass, or some other herbage, except a few steep, rocky cliffs at one part, with patches of trees interspersed to their summits. But the plantations are more numerous in some of the valleys; and the flat border is quite covered with high, strong trees, whose different kinds we could not discern, except some cocoa-palms, and a few of the _etoa_. According to the information of the men in the canoes, their island is stocked with hogs and fowls; and produces the several fruits and roots that are found at the other islands in this part of the Pacific Ocean.
We had an opportunity, from the conversation we had with those who came off to us, of satisfying ourselves, that the inhabitants of Toobouai speak the Otaheite language; a circumstance that indubitably proves them to be of the same nation. Those of them whom we saw in the canoes, were a stout copper-coloured people, with straight black hair, which some of them wore tied in a bunch on the crown of the head, and others, flowing about the shoulders. Their faces were somewhat round and full, but the features, upon the whole, rather flat; and their countenances seemed to express some degree of natural ferocity. They had no covering but a piece of narrow stuff wrapped about the waist, and made to pass between the thighs, to cover the adjoining parts; but some of those whom we saw upon the beach, where about a hundred persons had assembled, were entirely clothed with a kind of white garment. We could observe, that some of our visitors, in the canoes, wore pearl shells, hung about the neck, as an ornament. One of them kept blowing a large conch-shell, to which a reed, near two feet long, was fixed; at first, with a continued tone of the same kind; but he, afterward, converted it into a kind of musical instrument, perpetually repeating two or three notes, with the same strength. What the blowing the conch portended, I cannot say; but I never found it the messenger of peace.