The next morning, Mr. Banks, with lieutenant Gore, and three men, set out in a small boat up the river, with a view to spend two or three days in an excursion, to examine the country, and kill some of the animals which had been so often seen at a distance.
On the 7th, I sent the master again out to sound about the shoals, the account which he had brought me of the channel being by no means satisfactory; and we spent the remainder of this day, and the morning of the next, in fishing, and other necessary occupations.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Banks and his party returned, and gave us an account of their expedition. Having proceeded about three leagues among swamps and mangroves, they went up into the country, which they found to differ but little from what they had seen before: they pursued their course therefore up the river, which at length was contracted into a narrow channel, and was bounded, not by swamps and mangroves, but by steep banks, that were covered with trees of a most beautiful verdure, among which was that which in the West Indies is called Mohoe, or the bark-tree, the hibiscus tiliaceus; the land within was in general low, and had a thick covering of long grass: the soil seemed to be such as promised great fertility, to any who should plant and improve it. In the course of the day, Tupia saw an animal, which, by his description, Mr. Banks judged to be a wolf: they also saw three other animals, but could neither catch nor kill one of them, and a kind of bat, as large as a partridge, but this also eluded all their diligence and skill. At night, they took up their lodging close to the banks of the river, and made a fire, but the musquitos swarmed about them in such numbers, that their quarters were almost untenable; they followed them into the smoke, and almost into the fire, which, hot as the climate was, they could better endure than the stings of these insects, which were an intolerable torment. The fire, the flies, and the want of a better bed than the ground, rendered the night extremely uncomfortable, so that they passed it, not in sleep, but in restless wishes for the return of day. With the first dawn they set out in search of game, and in a walk of many miles, they saw four animals of the same kind, two of which Mr. Banks’s greyhound fairly chased, but they threw him out at a great distance, by leaping over the long thick grass, which prevented his running: this animal was observed not to run upon four legs, but to bound or hop forward upon two, like the Jerbua, or Mus Jaculus. About noon, they returned to the boat, and again proceeded up the river, which was soon contracted into a fresh-water brook, where, however, the tide rose to a considerable height: as evening approached, it became low water, and it was then so shallow that they were obliged to get out of the boat and drag her along, till they could find a place in which they might, with some hope of rest, pass the night. Such a place at length offered, and while they were getting the things out of the boat, they observed a smoke at the distance of about a furlong: as they did not doubt but that some of the natives, with whom they had so long and earnestly desired to become personally acquainted, were about the fire, three of the party went immediately towards it, hoping that so small a number would not put them to flight: when they came up to the place, however, they found it deserted, and therefore they conjectured, that before they had discovered the Indians, the Indians had discovered them. They found the fire still burning, in the hollow of an old tree that was become touch-wood, and several branches of trees newly broken down, with which children appeared to have been playing: they observed also many footsteps upon the sand, below high-water mark, which were certain indications that the Indians had been recently upon the spot. Several houses were found at a little distance, and some ovens dug in the ground, in the same manner as those of Otaheite, in which victuals appeared to have been dressed since the morning, and scattered about them lay some shells of a kind of clamm, and some fragments of roots, the refuse of the meal. After regretting their disappointment, they repaired to their quarters, which was a broad sand-bank, under the shelter of a bush. Their beds were plantain leaves, which they spread upon the sand, and which were as soft as a mattress; their cloaks served them for bed-clothes, and some bunches of grass for pillows: with these accommodations they hoped to pass a better night than the last, especially as, to their great comfort, not a musquito was to be seen. Here then they lay down, and, such is the force of habit, they resigned themselves to sleep, without once reflecting upon the probability and danger of being found by the Indians in that situation. If this appears strange, let us for a moment reflect, that every danger, and every calamity, after a time, becomes familiar, and loses its effect upon the mind. If it were possible that a man should first be made acquainted with his mortality, or even with the inevitable debility and infirmities of old age, when his understanding had arrived at its full strength, and life was endeared by the enjoyments of youth, and vigour, and health, with what an agony of terror and distress would the intelligence be received? yet, being gradually acquainted with these mournful truths, by insensible degrees, we scarce know when, they lose all their force, and we think no more of the approach of old age and death, than these wanderers of an unknown desert did of a less obvious and certain evil, the approach of the native savages, at a time when they must have fallen an easy prey to their malice or their fears. And it is remarkable, that the greater part of those who have been condemned to suffer a violent death, have slept the night immediately preceding their execution, though there is perhaps no instance of a person accused of a capital crime having slept the first night of his confinement. Thus is the evil of life in some degree a remedy for itself, and though every man at twenty deprecates fourscore, almost every man is as tenacious of life at fourscore as at twenty; and if he does not suffer under any painful disorder, loses as little of the comforts that remain by reflecting that he is upon the brink of the grave, where the earth already crumbles under his feet, as he did of the pleasures of his better days, when his dissolution, though certain, was supposed to be at a distance.
Our travellers having slept, without once awaking, till the morning, examined the river, and finding the tide favoured their return, and the country promised nothing worthy of a farther search, they reimbarked in their boat, and made the best of their way to the ship.
Soon after the arrival of this party, the master also returned, having been seven leagues out to sea, and he was now of opinion that there was no getting out where before he thought there had been a passage; his expedition, however, was by no means without its advantage, for having been a second time upon the rock where he had seen the large cockles, he met with a great number of turtle, three of which he caught, that together weighed seven hundred and ninety-one pounds, though he had no better instrument than a boat-hook.
The next morning, therefore, I sent him out again, with proper instruments for taking them, and Mr. Banks went with him, but the success did not at all answer our expectations, for, by the unaccountable conduct of the officer, not a single turtle was taken, nor could he be persuaded to return: Mr. Banks, however, went ashore upon the reef, where he saw several of the large cockles, and having collected many shells, and marine productions, he returned at eleven o’clock at night, in his own small boat, the master still continuing with the large one upon the rock. In the afternoon, seven or eight of the natives had appeared on the south side of the river, and two of them came down to the sandy point, opposite to the ship; but upon seeing me put off in a boat to speak with them, they all ran away with the greatest precipitation.
As the master continued absent with the boat all night, I was forced to send the second lieutenant for him, early the next morning in the yawl; and soon after four of the natives appeared upon the sandy point, on the north side of the river, having with them a small wooden canoe, with out-riggers: they seemed for some time to be busily employed in striking fish: some of our people were for going over to them in a boat, but this I would by no means permit, repeated experience having convinced me that it was more likely to prevent, than procure an interview. I was determined to try what could be done by a contrary method, and accordingly let them alone, without appearing to take the least notice of them: this succeeded so well, that at length two of them came in the canoe within a musket shot of the ship, and there talked a great deal in a very loud tone: we understood nothing that they said, and therefore could answer their harangue only by shouting, and making all the signs of invitation and kindness that we could devise. During this conference, they came insensibly nearer and nearer, holding up their lances, not in a threatening manner, but as if to intimate that if we offered them any injury, they had weapons to revenge it. When they were almost along-side of us, we threw them some cloth, nails, beads, paper, and other trifles, which they received without the least appearance of satisfaction: at last, one of the people happened to throw them a small fish, at this they expressed the greatest joy imaginable, and, intimating by signs, that they would fetch their companions, immediately paddled away towards the shore. In the mean time some of our people, and among them Tupia, landed on the opposite side of the river: the canoe, with all the four Indians, very soon returned to the ship, and came quite alongside, without expressing any fear or distrust. We distributed some more presents among them, and soon after they left us, and landed on the same side of the river where our people had gone ashore: every man carried in his hand two lances, and a stick, which is used in throwing them, and advanced to the place where Tupia and the rest of our people were sitting. Tupia soon prevailed upon them to lay down their arms, and come forward without them: he then made signs that they should sit down by him, with which they complied, and seemed to be under no apprehension or constraint: several more of us then going ashore, they expressed some jealousy lest we should get between them and their arms; we took care however to show them that we had no such intention, and having joined them, we made them some more presents, as a farther testimony of our good-will, and our desire to obtain theirs. We continued together, with the utmost cordiality, till dinner-time, and then giving them to understand that we were going to eat, we invited them, by signs, to go with us: this however they declined, and as soon as we left them, they went away in their canoe. One of these men was somewhat above the middle age, the other three were young; they were in general of the common stature, but their limbs were remarkably small; their skin was of the colour of wood-soot, or what would be called a dark chocolate colour; their hair was black, but not woolly; it was short cropped, in some lank, and in others curled. Dampier says, that the people whom he saw on the western coast of this country, wanted two of their fore-teeth, but these had no such defect: some part of their bodies had been painted red, and the upper lip and breast of one of them was painted with streaks of white, which he called Carbanda; their features were far from disagreeable, their eyes were lively, and their teeth even and white, their voices were soft and tunable, and they repeated many words after us with great facility. In the night, Mr. Gore and the master returned with the long-boat, and brought one turtle and a few shell-fish. The yawl had been left upon the shoal with six men, to make a farther trial for turtle.
The next morning, we had another visit from four of the natives; three of them had been with us before, but the fourth was a stranger, whose name, as we learnt from his companions who introduced him, was Yaparico. This gentleman was distinguished by an ornament of a very striking appearance: it was the bone of a bird, nearly as thick as a man’s finger, and five or six inches long, which he had thrust into a hole, made in the gristle that divides the nostrils; of this we had seen one instance, and only one, in New Zealand; but, upon examination, we found that among all these people this part of the nose was perforated, to receive an ornament of the same kind: they had also holes in their ears, though nothing was then hanging to them, and had bracelets upon the upper part of their arms, made of platted hair, so that, like the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, they seem to be fond of ornament, though they are absolutely without apparel; and one of them, to whom I had given part of an old shirt, instead of throwing it over any part of his body, tied it as a fillet round his head. They brought with them a fish, which they gave us, as we supposed, in return for the fish that we had given them the day before. They seemed to be much pleased, and in no haste to leave us, but seeing some of our gentlemen examine their canoe with great curiosity and attention, they were alarmed, and jumping immediately into it, paddled away without speaking a word.
About two the next morning, the yawl, which had been left upon the shoal, returned with three turtles and a large skeat. As it seemed now probable that this fishery might be prosecuted with advantage, I sent her out again after breakfast, for a further supply. Soon after, three Indians ventured down to Tupia’s tent, and were so well pleased with their reception, that one of them went with the canoe to fetch two others whom we had never seen: when he returned, he introduced the strangers by name, a ceremony which, upon such occasions, was never omitted. As they had received the fish that was thrown into their canoe, when they first approached the ship, with so much pleasure, some fish was offered to them now, and we were greatly surprised to see that it was received with the greatest indifference: they made signs, however, to some of the people, that they should dress it for them, which was immediately done, but after eating a little of it, they threw the rest to Mr. Banks’s dog. They staid with us all the forenoon, but would never venture above twenty yards from their canoe. We now perceived that the colour of their skin was not so dark as it appeared, what we had taken for their complexion, being the effects of dirt and smoke, in which we imagined, they contrived to sleep, notwithstanding the heat of the climate, as the only means in their power to keep off the musquitos. Among other things that we had given them when we first saw them, were some medals, which we had hung round their necks by a ribband; and these ribbands were so changed by smoke, that we could not easily distinguish of what colour they had been: this incident led us more narrowly to examine the colour of their skin. While these people were with us, we saw two others on the point of land that lay on the opposite side of the river, at the distance of about two hundred yards, and by our glasses discovered them to be a woman and a boy; the woman, like the rest, being stark naked. We observed, that all of them were remarkably clean-limbed, and exceedingly active and nimble. One of these strangers had a necklace of shells, very prettily made, and a bracelet upon his arm, formed of several strings, so as to resemble what in England is called gymp: both of them had a piece of bark tied over the forehead, and were disfigured by the bone in the nose. We thought their language more harsh than that of the Islanders in the South Sea, and they were continually repeating the word chercau, which we imagined to be a term expressing admiration, by the manner in which it was uttered: they also cried out, when they saw any thing new, cher, tut, tut, tut, tut! which probably had a similar signification. Their canoe was not above ten feet long, and very narrow, but it was fitted with an outrigger, much like those of the islands, though in every respect very much inferior: when it was in shallow water, they set it on with poles, and when in deep, they worked it with paddles about four feet long: it contained just four people, so that the people who visited us to-day went away at two turns. Their lances were, like those that we had seen in Botany Bay, except that they had but a single point, which in some of them was the sting of the ray, and barbed with two or three sharp bones of the same fish: it was indeed a most terrible weapon, and the instrument which they used in throwing it, seemed to be formed with more art than any we had seen before. About twelve o’clock next day, the yawl returned, with another turtle, and a large sting-ray, and in the evening, was sent out again.
The next morning, two of the Indians came on board, but after a short stay, went along the shore, and applied themselves with great diligence to the striking of fish. Mr. Gore, who went out this day with his gun, had the good fortune to kill one of the animals which had been so much the subject of our speculation: an idea of it will best be conceived by the cut, plate XX, without which, the most accurate verbal description would answer very little purpose, as it has not similitude enough to any animal already known, to admit of illustration by reference. In form, it is most like the gerbua, which it also resembles in its motion, as has been observed already, but it greatly differs in size, the gerbua not being larger than a common rat, and this animal, when full grown, being as big as a sheep: this individual was a young one, much under its full growth, weighing only thirty-eight pounds. The head, neck, and shoulders, are very small in proportion to the other parts of the body; the tail is nearly as long as the body, thick near the rump, and tapering towards the end: the fore-legs of this individual were only eight inches long, and the hind-legs two and twenty: its progress is by successive leaps or hops, of a great length, in an erect posture; the fore-legs are kept bent close to the breast, and seemed to be of use only for digging: the skin is covered with a short fur, of a dark mouse or grey colour, excepting the head and ears, which bear a slight resemblance to those of a hare. This animal is called by the natives Kanguroo.