Expedition inland and other transactions
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appearances of metal or ore, but could find none, except what I have brought back with me. I shewed all the people that we met with, the piece of saltpetre which had been picked up in the island, and which I had taken with me for that purpose, but none of them took any notice of it, nor could I learn from them any thing about it. The old man began now to be weary, and there being a mountain before us, he made signs that he would go home: before he left us, however, he made the people who had so liberally supplied us with provisions, take the baggage, with the fruit that had not been eaten, and some cocoa nut-shells full of fresh water, and made signs that they should follow us up the side of the mountain. As soon as he was gone, they gathered green branches from the neighbouring trees, and with many ceremonies, of which we did not know the meaning, laid them down before us: after this they took some small berries with which they painted themselves red, and the bark of a tree that contained a yellow juice, with which they stained their garments in different parts. We began to climb the mountain while our old man was still in sight, and he, perceiving that we made our way with difficulty through the weeds and brush-wood, which grew very thick, turned back, and said something to the natives in a firm loud tone; upon which twenty or thirty of the men went before us, and cleared us a very good path; they also refreshed us with water and fruit as we went along, and assisted us to climb the most difficult places, which we should otherwise have found altogether impracticable. We began to ascend this hill at the distance of about six miles from the place where we landed, and I reckoned the top of it to be near a mile above the river that runs through the valley below. When we arrived at the summit, we again sat down to rest and refresh ourselves. While we were
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 474, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/474.html