I Continued To Range Along The Coast, Till We Opened The Northern Point Of
The Isle, Without Seeing A Better Anchoring-Place Than The One We Had
Passed.
We therefore tacked, and plied back to it; and, in the mean time,
sent away the master in a boat to sound the coast.
He returned about five
o'clock in the evening; and soon after we came to an anchor in thirty-six
fathoms water, before the sandy beach above mentioned. As the master drew
near the shore with the boat, one of the natives swam off to her, and
insisted on coming a-board the ship, where he remained two nights and a
day. The first thing he did after coming a-board, was to measure the length
of the ship, by fathoming her from the tafferel to the stern, and as he
counted the fathoms, we observed that he called the numbers by the same
names that they do at Otaheite; nevertheless his language was in a manner
wholly unintelligible to all of us.[3]
Having anchored too near the edge of a bank, a fresh breeze from the land,
about three o'clock the next morning, drove us off it; on which the anchor
was heaved up, and sail made to regain the bank again. While the ship was
plying in, I went ashore, accompanied by some of the gentlemen, to see what
the island was likely to afford us. We landed at the sandy beach, where
some hundreds of the natives were assembled, and who were so impatient to
see us, that many of them swam off to meet the boats.
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