The next morning, I sent Lieutenant Furneaux to the shore, with the boats manned and armed, and all kinds of trinkets, to establish a traffick with the natives, for such refreshment as the place would afford. I gave him orders also to find, if possible, an anchoring place for the ship. While we were getting out the boats, several canoes put off from the island, but as soon as the people on board saw them make towards the shore, they put back. At noon, the boats returned, and brought with them a pig and a cock, with a few plantains and cocoa nuts. Mr. Furneaux reported, that he had seen at least an hundred of the inhabitants, and believed there were many more upon the island; but that having been all round it, he could find no anchorage, nor scarcely a landing-place for the boat. When he reached the shore, he came to a grapling, and threw a warp to the Indians upon the beach, who caught it and held it fast. He then began to converse with them by signs, and observed that they had no weapon among them, but that some of them had white sticks, which seemed to be ensigns of authority, as the people who bore them kept the rest of the natives back. In return for the pig and the cock, he gave them some beads, a looking-glass, a few combs, with several other trinkets, and a hatchet. The women, who had been kept at a distance, as soon as they saw the trinkets, ran down in a croud to the beach, with great eagerness, but were soon driven away by

Voyaging Accounts