My Officers Unanimously Gave Their Opinions For
Staying Longer Here.
So the next day I sent both boats ashore
again, to fish and to cut more wood.
While they were ashore about
thirty or forty men and women passed by them; they were a little
afraid of our people at first, but upon their making signs of
friendship, they passed by quietly, the men finely bedecked with
feathers of divers colours about their heads, and lances in their
hands; the women had no ornament about them, nor anything to cover
their nakedness but a bunch of small green boughs before and behind,
stuck under a string which came round their waists. They carried
large baskets on their heads, full of yams. And this I have
observed amongst all the wild natives I have known, that they make
their women carry the burdens while the men walk before, without any
other load than their arms and ornaments. At noon our men came
aboard with the wood they had cut, and had caught but six fishes at
four or five hauls of the seine, though we saw abundance of fish
leaping in the bay all the day long.
In the afternoon I sent the boats ashore for more wood; and some of
our men went to the natives' houses, and found they were now more
shy than they used to be, had taken down all the cocoa-nuts from the
trees, and driven away their hogs. Our people made signs to them to
know what was become of their hogs, &e. The natives pointing to
some houses in the bottom of the bay, and imitating the noise of
those creatures, seemed to intimate that there were both hogs and
goats of several sizes, which they expressed by holding their hands
abroad at several distances from the ground.
At night our boats came aboard with wood, and the next morning I
went myself with both boats up the river to the watering-place,
carrying with me all such trifles and iron-work as I thought most
proper to induce them to a commerce with us; but I found them very
shy and roguish. I saw but two men and a boy. One of the men, by
some signs, was persuaded to come to the boat's side, where I was;
to him I gave a knife, a string of beads, and a glass bottle. The
fellow called out, "Cocos, cocos," pointing to a village hard by,
and signified to us that he would go for some; but he never returned
to us: and thus they had frequently of late served our men. I took
eight or nine men with me, and marched to their houses, which I
found very mean, and their doors made fast with withies.
I visited three of their villages, and, finding all the houses thus
abandoned by the inhabitants, who carried with them all their hogs,
&c., I brought out of their houses some small fishing-nets in
recompense for those things they had received of us.
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