After dinner the boats were manned, and we set out from the ship, having Tupia of our party. We intended to land where we saw the people, and began to hope that as they had so little regarded the ship’s coming into the bay, they would as little regard our coming on shore: in this, however, we were disappointed; for as soon as we approached the rocks, two of the men came down upon them to dispute our landing, and, the rest ran away. Each of the two champions was armed with a lance about ten feet long, and a short stick which he seemed to handle as if it was a machine to assist him in managing or throwing the lance: they called to us in a very loud tone, and in a harsh dissonant language, of which neither we nor Tupia understood a single word: they brandished their weapons, and seemed resolved to defend their coast to the uttermost, though they were but two, and we were forty. I could not but admire their courage, and being very unwilling that hostilities should commence with such inequality of force between us, I ordered the boat to lie upon her oars: we then parlied by signs for about a quarter of an hour, and to bespeak their good-will, I threw them nails, beads, and other trifles, which they took up and seemed to be well pleased with. I then made signs that I wanted water, and, by all the means that I could devise, endeavoured to convince them that we would do them no harm: they now waved to us, and I was willing to interpret it as an invitation; but upon our putting the boat in, they came again to oppose us. One appeared to be a youth about nineteen or twenty, and the other a man of middle age: as I had now no other resource I fired a musquet between them. Upon the report, the youngest dropped a bundle of lances upon the rock, but recollecting himself in an instant he snatched them up again with great haste: a stone was then thrown at us, upon which I ordered a musquet to be fired with small shot, which struck the eldest upon the legs, and he immediately ran to one of the houses, which was distant about an hundred yards: I now hoped that our contest was over, and we immediately landed; but we had scarcely left the boat when he returned, and we then perceived that he had left the rock only to fetch a shield or target for his defence. As soon as he came up, he threw a lance at us, and his comrade another; they fell where we stood thickest, but happily hurt nobody. A third musquet with small shot was then fired at them, upon which one of them threw another lance, and both immediately ran away: if we had pursued, we might probably have taken one of them; but Mr. Banks suggesting that the lances might be poisoned, I thought it not prudent to venture into the woods. We repaired immediately to the huts, in one of which we found the children, who had hidden themselves behind a shield and some bark; we peeped at them, but left them in their retreat, without their knowing that they had been discovered, and we threw into the house when we went away some beads, ribbons, pieces of cloth, and other presents, which we hoped would procure us the good-will of the inhabitants when they should return; but the lances which we found lying about, we took away with us, to the number of about fifty: they were from six to fifteen feet long, and all of them had four prongs in the manner of a fish-gig, each of which was pointed with fish-bone, and very sharp: we observed that they were smeared with a viscous substance of a green colour, which favoured the opinion of their being poisoned, though we afterwards discovered that it was a mistake: they appeared, by the sea-weed that we found sticking to them, to have been used in striking fish. Upon examining the canoes that lay upon the beach, we found them to be the worst we had ever seen: they were between twelve and fourteen feet long, and made of the bark of a tree in one piece, which was drawn together and tied up at each end, the middle being kept open by sticks which were placed across them from gunwale to gunwale as thwarts. We then searched for fresh water, but found none, except in a small hole which had been dug in the sand.

Voyaging Accounts