hought fit to break into one of their
plantations, and dig up some potatoes: For this offence I ordered each
of them to be punished with twelve lashes, after which two of them were
discharged; but the third, insisting that it was no crime in an
Englishman to plunder an Indian plantation, though it was a crime in an
Indian to defraud an Englishman of a nail, I ordered him back into his
confinement, from which I would not release him till he had received six
lashes more.

On the 30th, there being a dead calm, and no probability of our getting
to sea, I sent the master, with two boats; to sound the harbour; and all
the forenoon had several canoes about the ship, who traded in a very
fair and friendly manner. In the evening we went ashore upon the main,
where the people received us very cordially; but we found nothing worthy
of notice.

In this bay we were detained by contrary winds and calms several days,
during which time our intercourse with the natives was continued in the
most peaceable and friendly manner, they being frequently about the
ship; and we ashore, both upon the islands and the main. In one of our
visits to the continent, an old man shewed us the instrument they use in
staining their bodies, which exactly resembled those that were employed
for the same purpose at Otaheite. We saw also the man who was wounded in
attempting to steal our buoy: The ball had passed through the fleshy
part of his arm, and grazed his breast; but the wound, under the care of
nature, the best surgeon, and a simple diet, the best nurse, was in a
good state, and seemed to give the patient neither pain nor
apprehension.[65] We saw also the brother of our old chief, who had been
wounded with small shot in our skirmish: They had struck his thigh
obliquely, and though several of them were still in the flesh, the wound
seemed to be attended with neither danger nor pain. We found among their
plantations the _morus papyrifera_, of which these people, as well as
those of Otaheite, make cloth; but here the plant seems to be rare, and
we saw no pieces of the cloth large enough for any use but to wear by
way of ornament in their ears.

[Footnote 65: Dr Hawkesworth is much given to this silly sort of cant,
more gratifying to vulgar prejudice, than becoming a scholar, or a man
of science. One knows not how to show its absurdity better than, by
merely directing the reader to consider for a moment, the things that
are put in contrast or compared t