Just before the evening closed in, our boats landed, and got a few cocoa-nuts, which they brought off, and saw none of the inhabitants. In the night, during which we had rain and hard squalls, I stood off and on with the ships, and at seven o'clock in the morning brought-to off the inlet. I immediately sent the boats on shore in search of refreshments, and made all the men who were not so ill of the scurvy as to be laid up, go in them; I also went on shore myself, and continued there the whole day. We saw many houses or wigwams of the natives, but they were totally deserted, except by the dogs, who kept an incessant howling from the time we came on shore till we returned to the ship: They were low mean hovels, thatched with cocoa-nut branches; but they were most delightfully situated in a fine grove of stately trees, many of which were the cocoa-nut, and many such as we were utterly unacquainted with. The cocoa-nut trees seem to furnish them with almost all the necessaries of life; particularly food, sails, cordage; timber, and vessels to hold water; so that probably these people always fix their habitations where the trees abound. We observed the shore to be covered with coral, and the shells of very large pearl oysters; so that I make no doubt but that as profitable a pearl fishery might be established here as any in the world. We saw but little of the people, except at a distance; we could however perceive that the women had a piece of cloth of some kind, probably fabricated of the same stuff as their sail, hanging from the waist as low as the knee; the men were naked.
Our people, in rummaging some of the huts, found the carved head of a rudder, which--had manifestly belonged to a Dutch long-boat, and was very old and worm-eaten. They found also a piece of hammered iron, a piece of brass, and some small iron tools, which the ancestors of the present inhabitants of this place probably obtained from the Dutch ship to which the long-boat had belonged, all which I brought away with me. Whether these people found means to cut off the ship, or whether she was lost upon the island, or after she left it, cannot be known; but there is reason to believe that she never returned to Europe, because no account of her voyage, or of any discoveries that she made, is extant. If the ship sailed from this place in safety, it is not perhaps easy to account for her leaving the rudder of her long-boat behind her: And if she was cut off by the natives, there must be much more considerable remains of her in the island, especially of her iron-work, upon which all Indian nations, who have no metal, set the highest value; we had no opportunities however to examine this matter farther. The hammered-iron, brass, and iron tools, I brought away with me; but we found a tool exactly in the form of a carpenter's adze, the blade of which was a pearl oyster-shell; possibly this might have been made in imitation of an adze which had belonged to the carpenter of the Dutch ship, for among the tools that I brought away there was one which seemed to be the remains of such an implement, though it was worn away almost to nothing.
Close to the houses of these people, we saw buildings of another kind, which appeared to be burying-places, and from which we judged that they had great veneration for their dead. They were situated under lofty trees, that gave a thick shade; the sides and tops were of stone; and in their figure they somewhat resembled the square tombs, with a flat top, which are always to be found in our country church-yards. Near these buildings we found many neat boxes full of human bones, and upon the branches of the trees which shaded them, hung a great number of the heads and bones of turtle, and a variety of fish, inclosed in a kind of basket-work of reeds: Some of the fish we took down, and found that nothing remained but the skin and the teeth; the bones and entrails seemed to have been extracted, and the muscular flesh dried away.
We sent off several boat-loads of cocoa-nuts, and a great quantity of scurvy-grass, with which the island is covered; refreshments which were of infinite service to us, as by this time I believe there was not a man among us wholly untouched by the scurvy.
The fresh water here is very good, but it is scarce; the wells which supply the natives are so small, that when two or three cocoa-nut shells have been filled from them, they are dry for a few minutes; but as they presently fill again, if a little pains were taken to enlarge them, they would abundantly supply any ship with water.
We saw no venomous creature here; but the flies were an intolerable torment, they covered us from head to foot, and filled not only the boat, but the ships. We saw great numbers of parrots and paroquets, and several other birds which were altogether unknown to us; we saw also a beautiful kind of dove, so tame that some of them frequently came close to us, and even followed us into the Indian huts.
All this day the natives kept themselves closely concealed, and did not even make a smoke upon any part of the islands as far as we could see; probably fearing that a smoke might discover the place of their retreat. In the evening, we all returned on board the ship.
This part of the island lies in latitude 14° 29' S., longitude 148° 50' W. and after I got on board, I hauled a little way farther from the shore, intending to visit the other island in the morning, which had been seen to the westward of that before which the ship lay, and which is distant about sixty-nine leagues from the Islands of Disappointment, in the direction of W.1/2 S.
The next morning at six o'clock, I made sail for the island which I intended to visit, and when I reached it, I steered S.W. by W. close along the north-east side of it, but could get no soundings: This side is about six or seven leagues long, and the whole makes much the same appearance as the other, having a large salt-water lake in the middle of it. As soon as the ship came in sight, the natives ran down to the beach in great numbers: They were armed in the same manner as those that we had seen upon the other island, and kept abreast of the ship for several leagues. As the heat of this climate is very great, they seemed to suffer much by running so far in the sun, for they sometimes plunged into the sea, and sometimes fell flat upon the sand, that the surf might break over them, after which they renewed the race with great vigour. Our boats were at this time sounding along the shore, as usual, but I had given strict orders to the officers who commanded them never to molest the natives, except it should become absolutely necessary for their own defence, but to try all possible means to obtain their confidence and good will: Our people therefore went as near to the shore as they durst for the surf, and made signs that they wanted water; the Indians readily understood them, and directed them to run down farther along the shore, which they did, till they came abreast of such a cluster of houses as we had just left upon the other island; to this place the Indians still followed them, and were there joined by many others: The boats immediately hauled close into the surf, and we brought-to, with the ships, at a little distance from the shore, upon which a stout old man, with a long white beard, that gave him a very venerable appearance, came down from the houses to the beach. He was attended by a young man, and appeared to have the authority of a chief or king: The rest of the Indians, at a signal which he made, retired to a little distance, and he then advanced quite to the water's edge; in one hand he held the green branch of a tree, and in the other he grasped his beard, which he pressed to his bosom; in this attitude he made a long oration, or rather song, for it had a musical cadence which was by no means disagreeable. We regretted infinitely that we could not understand what he said to us, and not less that he could not understand any thing which we should say to him; to shew our good-will, however, we threw him some trifling presents, while he was yet speaking, but he would neither touch them himself, nor suffer them to be touched by others till he had done: He then walked into the water, and threw our people the green branch, after which he took up the things which had been thrown from the boats. Every thing now having a friendly appearance, our people made signs that they should lay down their arms, and most of them having complied, one of the midshipmen, encouraged by this testimony of confidence and friendship, leaped out of the boat with his clothes on, and swam through the surf to shore. The Indians immediately gathered round him, and began to examine his clothes with great curiosity; they seemed particularly to admire his waistcoat, and being willing to gratify his new friends, he took it off, and presented it to them; this courtesy, however, produced a disagreeable effect, for he had no sooner given away his waistcoat; than one of the Indians very ingeniously untied his cravat, and the next moment snatched it from his neck, and ran away with it. Our adventurer, therefore, to prevent his being stripped by piece-meal, made the best of his way back again to the boat: Still, however, we were upon good terms, and several of the Indians swam off to our people, some of them bringing a cocoa-nut, and others a little fresh water in a cocoa-nut shell. But the principal object of our boats was to obtain some pearls; and the men, to assist them in explaining their meaning, had taken with them some of the pearl oyster-shells which they had found in great numbers upon the coast; but all their endeavours were ineffectual, for they could not, even with this assistance, at all make themselves understood. It is indeed probable that we should have succeeded better, if an intercourse of any kind could have been established between us, but it was our misfortune that no anchorage could be found for the ships. As all Indians are fond of beads, it can scarcely be supposed that the pearls, which the oysters at this place contained, were overlooked by the natives, and it is more than probable that if we could have continued here a few weeks, we might have obtained some of great value in exchange for nails, hatchets, and billhooks, upon which the natives, with more reason, set a much higher value. We observed, that in the lake, or lagoon, there were two or three very large vessels, one of which had two masts, and some cordage aloft to support them.
To these two islands, I gave the name of King George's Islands, in honour of his majesty. That which we last visited, lies in latitude 14°41'S., longitude 149°15'W; the variation of the compass here was 5°E.