Note 7 — Chapter XXII
Reading edition
Some diversity of opinion has arisen respecting the spelling of this name. No person now doubts that Tahiti is the native word, and therefore the most correct to be used when talking to Polynesian islanders, or writing for them; but as our immortal countryman, Cook, wrote Otaheite, and it is difficult to hear or see the word without thinking of him, I shall beg to be allowed the same privilege that Frenchmen claim when writing ‘Londres,’ or Englishmen when they write ‘Sicily;’ and for the future use only the word Otaheite.