The Admiral on this sent a boat on shore with knives, bells, beads, and other things, which he thought would please them. Seeing the strangers, two of the natives came rushing down at a great rate, but stopped short when still at some distance. On the English retiring, they, however, advanced and took the articles which had been placed on sticks so that they could be seen, leaving instead plumes of feathers, and bones shaped like large toothpicks.
Their confidence was soon gained, and numbers coming down, mixed freely among their visitors. They appeared to be a mild, well-disposed people, and learned to place implicit confidence in the Admiral, who won the affection of the chief by bestowing upon him the cap he usually wore. The savage, as a curious mark of his affection, wounded himself with an arrow in the leg, letting the blood stream on the ground.
These natives were well-made, good-looking, and remarkably active and swift of foot. They obtained from the birds and seals frequenting the shore an abundance of food, which, it appeared, they ate raw. They were all armed with short bows, and arrows of reed headed with flints. The English here killed large numbers of birds, which were so tame that
they perched on the men’s heads and shoulders, and in a bay near at hand they took upwards of two hundred seals in the space of an hour.
Having repaired and provisioned the ships, on the 3rd of June they set sail, steering southward, but anchored again in two days in a bay, where the caunter Christopher was run on shore and her cargo removed.
Again they proceeded, after anchoring a short time, until they brought up once more in another bay in 15 degrees 20 minutes, short only one degree off the mouth of the straits.
Here the Admiral, anxious to find the long-missing Mary, which had on board their chief store of wine, determined to sail back again until they reached the latitude where she had been lost. A bright look-out was kept for her, and happily, on the evening of the 19th of June, when the squadron was within a few leagues of Port Saint Julien, the missing ship was sighted. They were greatly rejoiced at this; but she was found to be so much out of order, and her crew had suffered so many privations, that the Admiral thought it well to put into that harbour, which was to prove a place fatal to several of their number.