A considerable number of the natives visited us daily; and every now and then we saw new faces. On their first coming, they generally went through a singular mode of introducing themselves. They would paddle, with all their strength, quite round both ships, a chief, or other principal person, in the canoe, standing up with a spear, or some other weapon, in his hand, and speaking, or rather hollowing, all the time. Sometimes the orator of the canoe would have his face covered with a mask, representing either a human visage, or that of some animal; and, instead of a weapon, would hold a rattle in his hand, as before described. After making this circuit round the ships, they would come alongside, and begin to trade without further ceremony. Very often, indeed, they would first give us a song, in which all in the canoe joined, with a very pleasing harmony.
During these visits they gave us no other trouble than to guard against their thievish tricks. But, in the morning of the 4th, we had a serious alarm. Our party on shore, who were employed in cutting wood and filling water, observed that the natives all around them were arming themselves in the best manner they could; those who were not possessed of proper weapons, preparing sticks and collecting stones. On hearing this, I thought it prudent to arm also; but being determined to act upon the defensive, I ordered all our workmen to retreat to the rock, upon which we had placed our observatories; leaving the natives in quiet possession of the ground where they had assembled, which was within a stone’s throw of the Resolution’s stern. Our fears were ill-grounded: these hostile preparations were not directed against us, but against a body of their own countrymen, who were coming to fight them; and our friends of the Sound, on observing our apprehensions, used their best endeavours to convince us that this was the case. We could see that they had people looking out, on each point of the cove, and canoes frequently passed between them and the main body assembled near the ships. At length the adverse party, in about a dozen large canoes, appeared off the south point of the cove, where they stopped, and lay drawn up in line of battle, a negociation having commenced. Some people in canoes, in conducting the treaty, passed between the two parties, and there was some speaking on both sides. At length, the difference, whatever it was, seemed to be compromised; but the strangers were not allowed to come along-side the ships, nor to have any trade or intercourse with us. Probably we were the cause of the quarrel; the strangers, perhaps, being desirous to share in the advantages of a trade with us; and our first friends, the inhabitants of the Sound, being determined to engross us entirely to themselves. We had proofs of this on several other occasions; nay, it appeared that even those who lived in the Sound were not united in the same cause; for the weaker were frequently obliged to give way to the stronger party, and plundered of every thing, without attempting to make the least resistance.
We resumed our work in the afternoon, and the next day, rigged the foremast; the head of which being rather too small for the cap, the carpenter went to work to fix a piece on one side, to fill up the vacant space. In cutting into the mast-head for this purpose, and examining the state of it, both cheeks were found to be so rotten that there was no possibility of repairing them; and it became necessary to get the mast out, and to fix new ones upon it. It was evident that one of the cheeks had been defective at the first, and that the unsound part had been cut out, and a piece put in, which had not only weakened the mast-head, but had, in a great measure, been the occasion of rotting every other part of both cheeks. Thus, when we were almost ready to put to sea, we had all our work to do over again; and, what was still more provoking, an additional repair was to be undertaken, which would require some time to be completed. But, as there was no remedy, we immediately set about it. It was fortunate for the voyage that these defects were discovered, when we were in a place where the materials requisite were to be procured. For, amongst the drift-wood in the cove where the ships lay, were some small seasoned trees very fit for our purpose. One of these was pitched upon; and the carpenters began, without loss of time, to make out of it two new cheeks.
In the morning of the 7th, we got the foremast out, and hauled it ashore; and the carpenters of the ships were set to work upon it. Some parts of the lower standing rigging having been found to be very much decayed, as we had time now to put them in order, while the carpenters were repairing the foremast, I ordered a new set of main-rigging to be fitted, and a more perfect set of fore-rigging to be selected out of the best parts of the old.
From the time of our putting into the Sound till now, the weather had been exceedingly fine, without either wind or rain. That comfort, at the very moment when the continuance of it would have been of most service, was withdrawn. In the morning of the 8th, the wind freshened at south-east, attended with thick hazy weather and rain. In the afternoon the wind increased; and toward the evening it blew very hard indeed. It came, in excessively heavy squalls, from over the high land on the opposite shore, right into the cove; and, though the ships were very well moored, put them in some danger. These tempestuous blasts succeeded each other pretty quick; but they were of short duration; and in the intervals between them we had a perfect calm. According to the old proverb, “misfortunes seldom come single;” the mizen was now the only mast on board the Resolution that remained rigged, with its top-mast up. The former was so defective that it could not support the latter during the violence of the squalls, but gave way at the head under the rigging. About eight o’clock the gale abated; but the rain continued with very little intermission for several days; and, that the carpenters might be enabled to proceed in their labours, while it prevailed, a tent was erected over the foremast, where they could work with some degree of convenience.
The bad weather which now came on, did not, however, hinder the natives from visiting us daily; and, in such circumstances, their visits were very advantageous to us. For they frequently brought us a tolerable supply of fish, when we could not catch any ourselves with hook and line; and there was not a proper place near us where we could draw a net. The fish which they brought us were either sardines, or what resembled them much, a small kind of bream, and sometimes small cod.
On the 11th, notwithstanding the rainy weather, the main-rigging was fixed and got over head; and our employment, the day after, was to take down the mizen-mast, the head of which proved to be so rotten that it dropped off while in the slings. In the evening we were visited by a tribe of natives whom we had never seen before; and who, in general, were better looking people than most of our old friends, some of whom attended them. I prevailed upon these visitors to go down into the cabin for the first time; and observed, that there was not a single object that fixed the attention of most of them for a moment; their countenances marking that they looked upon all our novelties with the utmost indifference. This, however, was not without exception; for a few of the company showed a certain degree of curiosity.
In the afternoon of the next day I went into the woods with a party of our men, and cut down a tree for a mizen-mast. On the day following, it was brought to the place where the carpenters were employed upon the foremast. In the evening the wind, which had been for some time westerly, veered to the south-east, and increased to a very hard gale, with rain, which continued till eight o’clock the next morning, when it abated, and veered again to the west.
The fore-mast being, by this time, finished, we hauled it along-side; but the bad weather prevented our getting it in till the afternoon; and we set about rigging it with the greatest expedition, while the carpenters were going on with the mizen-mast on shore. They had made very considerable progress in it on the 16th, when they discovered that the stick upon which they were at work was sprung, or wounded, owing, as supposed, to some accident in cutting it down. So that all their labour was thrown away; and it became necessary to get another tree out of the woods, which employed all hands above half a day. During these various operations, several of the natives, who were about the ships, looked on with an expressive silent surprize, which we did not expect, from their general indifference and inattention.
On the 18th a party of strangers, in six or eight canoes, came into the cove, where they remained, looking at us, for some time; and then retired, without coming alongside either ship. We supposed that our old friends, who were more numerous at this time about us than these new visitors, would not permit them to have an intercourse with us. It was evident, upon this and several other occasions, that the inhabitants of the adjoining parts of the Sound engrossed us entirely to themselves; or if, at any time, they did not hinder strangers from trading with us, they contrived to manage the trade for them in such a manner that the price of their commodities was always kept up, while the value of ours was lessening every day. We also found that many of the principal natives who lived near us, carried on a trade with more distant tribes, in the articles they had procured from us. For we observed that they would frequently disappear for four or five days at a time, and then return with fresh cargoes of skins and curiosities, which our people were so passionately fond of that they always came to a good market. But we received most benefit from such of the natives as visited us daily. These, after disposing of all their little trifles, turned their attention to fishing, and we never failed to partake of what they caught. We also got from these people a considerable quantity of very good animal oil, which they had reserved in bladders. In this traffic some would attempt to cheat us, by mixing water with the oil; and, once or twice, they had the address to carry their imposition so far as to fill their bladders with mere water, without a single drop of oil. It was always better to bear with these tricks than to make them the foundation of a quarrel; for our articles of traffic consisted, for the most part, of mere trifles; and yet we were put to our shifts to find a constant supply even of these. Beads, and such other toys, of which I had some left, were in little estimation. Nothing would go down with our visitors but metal; and brass had, by this time supplanted iron, being so eagerly sought after, that before we left this place, hardly a bit of it was left in the ships except what belonged to our necessary instruments. Whole suits of clothes were stripped of every button; bureaus of their furniture; and copper kettles, tin cannisters, candlesticks, and the like, all went to wreck; so that our American friends here got a greater medley and variety of things from us than any other nation whom we had visited in the course of the voyage.