"In putting the surveying instruments into the boat the chain was found
missing; we were of opinion it had been left on shore by the soldiers who
carried it in measuring the distances. A boat with one of them was sent
on shore. After a fruitless search they were returning when a canoe put
off from the island with a man in it who held up the chain in his hand.
The boat's crew brought him on board to me. On looking at the chain it
was made up in the usual way...and tied with a piece of string; but in
undoing it I found that the natives had untwisted every bend of the wires
which contained the brass markers and after taking them off bent the
wires back into their original form, with this difference, that they
placed the end which is carried in the hand in the middle. This was the
first instance I had experienced of their pilfering anything and I did
not chuse to proceed to extremities. I gave the native a blanket and some
biscuits and the mate gave him an old hat.
"We got into the boat to prosecute the intention of surveying the
island...the native with us, towing his canoe astern. On landing we were
joined by a great number of natives who seemed glad that the man had been
rewarded for carrying back the chain. The blanket attracted their notice
much, the use of which they appeared to know. The old man whom I formerly
mentioned was among them; he made signs for me to sit down at a distance
from the rest and by pointing to his white beard signified a wish to have
it cut off, which I immediately did with a pair of scissors, and he
expressed much satisfaction at being rid of it."
Observing some of their women in the distance and wishing to see what
they were like, signs were made to the old man to ask them to come
nearer. He called to them, whereupon they seated themselves close to the
visitors. They seemed nervous as the white men approached them, but when
the old chief spoke to them sat down again composedly. One of them had
fastened to the neck of her child a brass marker which had been taken
from the stolen chain. Grant says: "They examined my buttons and the head
of my dirk and seemed much surprised at my watch chain which I began to
think they had an inclination for, but I was soon relieved on pulling out
my watch. They did not seem to like it and talked very gravely among
themselves; they were all anxious to listen to the noise of the watch,
yet they would pull their ear from it and look at the watch with symptoms
of fear...and then return to it again.
