1765. June. Tuesday 11. ว Cocoa-nut. When thefe veffels fail, feveral men fit upon the spars which hold the canoes together. As the furf, which broke very high upon the fhore, rendered it impoffible to procure refrefhments for the fick in this part of the ifland, I hauled the wind, and worked back to the inlet, being determined to try once more what could be done there. I recovered that station in the afternoon, and immediately sent the boats to found the inlet again, but they confirmed the account which had been made before, that it afforded no anchorage for a fhip. While the boats were abfent, I obferved a great number of the natives upon the point near the spot where we had left them in the morning, and they feemed to be very bufy in loading a great number of large canoes which lay clofe to the beach. As I thought they might be troublesome, and was unwilling that they should fuffer by another unequal conteft with our people, I fired a fhot over their heads, which produced the effect I intended, for they all difappeared in a moment. Juft before the evening closed in, our boats landed, and got a few cocoa-nuts which they brought off, but faw none of the inhabitants. In the night, during which we had rain and hard fqualls, I ftood off and on with the ships, and at seven o'clock in the morning brought to off the inlet. I immediately sent the boats on fhore in search of refreshments, and made all the men who were not fo ill of the fcurvy as to be laid up, go in them; I also went on fhore myself, and continued there the whole day. We faw many houses or wigwams of the natives, but they were totally deserted, except by the dogs, who kept an inceffant howling, from the time we came on fhore till we returned to the hip: they were low mean hovels, thatched with cocoa-nut branches; but they were most delightfully fituated in a fine grove of stately trees, many of which were the cocoa-nut, and many fuch as we were utterly unacquainted with. The cocoa-nut trees feem to furnish them with almost all the ncceffaries of life; particularly food, fails, cordage, timber, and veffels to hold water; fo that probably these people always fix their habitations where these trees abound. ferved the shore to be covered with coral, We ob and the fhells fhells of very large pearl oyfters; fo that I make no 1765. doubt but that as profitable a pearl fishery might be June. established here as any in the world. We faw but little of the people, except at a distance; we could however perceive that the women had a piece of cloth of fome kind, probably fabricated of the same stuff as their fail, hanging from the waist as low as the knee; the men were naked. Our people, in rummaging some of the huts, found the carved head of a rudder, which had manifeftly belonged to a Dutch long-boat, and was very old and worm-eaten. They found alfo a piece of hammerediron, a piece of brafs, and fome fmall iron tools, which the ancestors of the present inhabitants of this place probably obtained from the Dutch ship to which the long-boat had belonged, all which I brought away with me. Whether these people found means to cut off the ship, or whether she was loft upon the island or after she left it, cannot be known; but there is reason to believe that she never returned to Europe, because no account of her voyage, or of any discoveries that she made, is extant. If the ship failed from this place in fafety, it is not perhaps easy to account for her leaving the rudder of her long-boat behind her; and if the was cut off by the natives, there must be much more confiderable remains of her in the island, especially of her iron-work, upon which all Indian nations, who have no metal, fet the highest value; we had no opportunities however to examine this matter farther. The hammered-iron, brafs, and iron tools, I brought away with me; but we found a tool exactly in the form of a carpenter's adze, the blade of which was a pearl oyfter-shell; poffibly this might have been made in imitation of an adze which had belonged to the carpenter of the Dutch Ship; for among the tools that I brought away there was one which feemed to be the remains of fuch an implement, though it was worn away almost to nothing. Close to the houfes of thefe people, we faw buildings of another kind, which appeared to be buryingplaces, and from which we judged that they had great veneration for their dead. They were fituated under lofty trees, that gave a thick fhade; the fides and tops VOL. I. G were 1765. June. were of stone; and in their figure they fomewhat refembled the fquare tombs, with a flat top, which are always to be found in our country church-yards. Near thefe buildings we found many neat boxes full of human bones, and upon the branches of the trees which fhaded them, hung a great number of the heads and bones of turtle, and a variety of fish, inclofed in a kind of basket-work of reeds: fome of the fish we took down, and found that nothing remained but the fkin and teeth: the bones and entrails feemed to have been extracted, and the muscular flesh dried away. We fent off feveral boat-loads of cocoa-nuts, and a great quantity of fcurvy-grafs, with which the ifland is covered; refreshments which were of infinite fervice to us, as by this time I believe there was not a man among us wholly untouched by the fcurvy. The fresh water here is very good, but it is fcarce; the wells which supply the natives are fo fmall, that when two or three cocoa-nut shells have been filled from them, they are dry for a few minutes; but as they presently fill again, if a little pains were taken to enlarge them, they would abundantly fupply any ship with water. 1 We faw no venemous creature here; but the flies were an intolerable torment, they covered us from head to foot, and filled not only the boat, but the ships. We faw great numbers of parrots and parroquets, and feveral other birds, which were altogether unknown to us; we saw alfo a beautiful kind of dove, so tame that fome of them frequently came close to us, and even followed us into the Indian huts. All this day the natives kept themselves clofely concealed, and did not even make a smoke upon any part of the islands as far as we could fee; probably fearing that a smoke might difcover the place of their refreat. In the evening we all returned on board the ship. This part of the island lies in latitude 140 29' S. longitude 148° 50' W. and after I got on board, I hauled a little way farther from the fhore, intending to vifit the other island in the morning, which had been feen to the weftward of that before which the ship lay, and which is diftant about fixty-nine leagues from the the Iflands of Difappointment, in the direction of 1765 W. S. June. The next morning, at fix o'clock, I made fail for Wednef.12. the island which I intended to vifit, and when I reached it, I steered S. W. by W. close along the north-eaft fide of it, but could get no foundings: this fide is about fix or feven leagues long, and the whole makes much the fame appearance as the other, having a large falt, water lake in the middle of it. As foon as the fhip came in fight, the natives ran down to the beach in great numbers they were armed in the fame manner as thofe we had feen upon the other ifland, and kept a-breast of the ship for feveral leagues. As the heat of this climate is very great, they seemed to fuffer much by running fo far in the fun, for they fometimes plunged into the fea, and fometimes fell flat upon the fand, that the furf might break over them, after which they renewed the race with great vigour. Our boats were at this time founding along the fhore, as ufual, but I had given strict orders to the officers who commanded them never to moleft the natives, except it should become abfolutely neceffary for their own defence, but to try all poffible means to obtain their confidence and good-will: our people therefore went as near to the shore as they durft for the furf, and made figns that they wanted water; the Indians readily understood them, and directed them to run down farther along the shore, which they did, till they came a-breaft of fuch a cluster of houses as we had just left upon the other ifland; to this place the Indians ftill followed them, and were there joined by many others; the boats immediately hauled clofe into the furf, and we brought to, with the fhips, at a little diftance from the fhore, upon which a ftout old man, with a long white beard, that gave him a very venerable appearance, came down from the houfes to the beach. was attended by a young man, and appeared to have the authority of a Chief or King: the reft of the Indians, at a fignal which he made, retired to a little distance, and he then advanced quite to the water's edge; in one hand he held a green branch of a tree, and in the other he grasped his beard, which he pressed to his bofom; in this attitude he made a long oration, He or rather fong, for it had a musical cadence, which was by no means difagreeable. We regretted infinitely that we could not understand what he said to us, and not less that he could not understand any thing which we should fay to him; to fhew our good-will, however, we threw him fome trifling prefents, while he was yet speaking, but he would neither touch them himself, nor fuffer them to be touched by others till he had done: he then walked into the water, and threw our people the green branch, after which he took up the things which had been thrown from the boats. Every thing now having a friendly appearance, our people made figns that they should lay down their arms, and most of them having complied, one of the midshipmen, encouraged by this teftimony of confidence and friendship, leaped out of the boat with his clothes on, and fwam through the furf to the fhore. The Indians immediately gathered round him, and began to examine his clothes with great curiofity; they seemed particularly to admire his waistcoat, and being willing to gratify his new friends, he took it off, and prefented it to them; this courtesy, however, produced a difagreeable effect, for he had no fooner given away his waistcoat, than one of the Indians very ingeniously untied his cravat, and the next moment fnatched it from his neck, and ran away with it. Our adventurer, therefore, to prevent his being stripped by piece-meal, made the beft of his way back again to the boat; ftill, however, we were upon good terms, and feveral of the Indians fwam off to our people, fome of them bringing a cocoa-nut, and others a little fresh water in a cocoa-nut shell. But the principal object of our boats, was to obtain fome pearls; and men, to affist them in explaining their meaning, had taken with them fome of the pearl oyster fhells which they had found in great numbers upon the coast; but all their endeavours were ineffectual, for they could not, even with this affiftance, at all make themfelves understood. It is indeed probable that we fhould have fucceeded better, if an intercourse of any kind could have been established between us, but it was our misfortune that no anchorage could be found for the fhips. As all Indians are fond of beads, it can fcarcely be fuppofed that the |