King George's Island
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AT half an hour after five o’clock in the afternoon of the 9th, we saw land again, bearing W.S.W. at the distance of six or seven leagues; and at seven we brought to for the night. In the morning, being within three miles of the shore, we discovered it to be a long low island, with a white beach, of a pleasant appearance, full of cocoa-nut and other trees, and surrounded with a rock of red coral. We stood along the north east side of it, within half a mile of the shore; and the savages, as soon as they saw us, made great fires, as we supposed, to alarm the distant inhabitants of the island, and ran along the beach, abreast of the ship, in great numbers, armed in the same manner as the natives of the Islands of Disappointment. Over the land on this side of the island we could see a large lake of salt water, or lagoon, which appeared to be two or three leagues wide, and to reach within a small distance of the opposite shore. Into this lagoon we saw a small inlet about a league from the south west point, off which we brought to. At this place the natives have built a little town, under the shade of a fine grove of cocoa-nut trees. I immediately sent off the boats, with an officer in each, to sound; but they could find no anchorage, the shore being every where as steep as a wall, except at the very mouth of the inlet, which was
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 97, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/133.html