| "The natives had sufficient confidence." |
When the captain landed he was received with joyful demonstrations, and with the surprise natural to people who are brought face to face with objects of which they have had no previous idea. Some of the chiefs, enjoining silence, made short harangues, and Cook began the usual distribution of ironmongery and hardware. His officers mixed with the crowd to make observations.
Many of the natives appeared afflicted with a kind of leprosy, and their arms and legs were greatly swollen. They were all but naked, wearing merely a cord tightened to the figure, from which hung scraps of stuff made from the fig-tree. A few wore enormous cylindrical hats, open on two sides, like the hats of the Hungarian hussars. They hung tortoiseshell earrings or rolls of the leaves of the sugar-cane in their ears, which were pulled out and split.
The English soon perceived a little village above the mangroves which bordered the shore. It was surrounded by sugar-cane plantations, yams, and banana-trees, and watered by little canals, cleverly diverted from the large river.
Cook soon discovered that he need expect nothing of this race but permission to survey the country.
"These natives," he says, "taught us a few words of their language, which bore no resemblance to that of any other tribe. They were mild and peaceable in character, but extremely lazy. If we addressed them they replied, but if we continued our way seldom joined us in our excursions. If we passed their cabins without remark, they took no notice of us. The women were slightly more curious, and hid themselves in the bushes to look after us, but they would only approach in the company of the men. They appeared neither vexed nor alarmed when we shot birds. Indeed, if we were near their huts, the young people would point them out to us, for the pleasure of seeing us fire. They appeared to have very little to do at this time of year. Having tilled the ground, and sown roots and bananas, they awaited their crops next summer.
"Perhaps in this fact lay the explanation of their having no provisions to offer in traffic, for in other respects we found them fully alive to the hospitable instinct which more particularly commends the islanders of the southern seas to navigators."
Cook's assertion of the indolence of the New Caledonians is perfectly true. But his stay amongst them was too short to enable him to appreciate their character thoroughly; and he certainly never suspected that they indulged in the horrible practice of cannibalism. He noticed no birds living in a wild state there excepting quails, turtle-doves, pigeons, turkeys, ducks, teal, and a few smaller ones. He could not ascertain the presence of any quadrupeds, and he entirely failed in his endeavours to procure provisions.
At Balade the captain made several excursions into the interior, and climbed the mountains to gain a general view over the country. From the summit of a rock he clearly saw the two coasts and ascertained that New Caledonia in this part was only ten leagues in width.