t is to be borne
in mind that these people universally consider the absence of offensive
weapons as the surest test of peaceful intentions, and would therefore,
if they desired to maintain a friendly footing with the newcomers, most
probably deposit their arms in some place of concealment before they made
themselves visible.

(*Footnote. A similar custom was noticed by Captain Cook at the Sandwich
Islands, where it was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Eatooa,
to avert his anger; and not to express, as the same mutilation does in
the Friendly Islands, grief for the loss of a friend.)

NATIVE SMOKES.

The coast seems pretty thickly populated between Roebuck and Beagle Bays;
as the smoke from native fires was constantly to be seen, but in all
cases these signs of human existence were confined to the neighbourhood
of the sea. The fishing proved unsuccessful, so we were fain to content
ourselves without the promised addition to our evening meal. We found the
tide rise here 18 feet.

In the afternoon we reached another anchorage, some ten miles further to
the North-East. The coast along which we sailed within the distance of
two miles, was chiefly remarkable for its tall, dark-looking cliffs, with
here and there a small sandy bay intervening. We anchored under Point
Emeriau, so named by Captain Baudin, by whom it was mistaken for an
island; its tall, white cliffs, springing from and guarded by a base and
ledges of black rock, and tinged with red towards their summits, render
it a point not easily to be mistaken or forgotten by any who have once
seen it. Beyond this the coast curved away to the eastward, forming a
bight about eleven miles in length.

January 26.

Leaving our anchorage at daylight, we passed the north point of the bight
just mentioned soon after noon; it is a low black rugged cliffy point,
called Borda by the French, having a much more weather-beaten appearance
than would have been anticipated in this latitude. Behind it the country
rose obliquely, the horizon terminating in an inconsiderable, undulatory,
and well-wooded elevation.

CAPE LEVEQUE.

We passed another bight in the afternoon, the shores of which were low
and rocky, with a mangrove creek in its depth: from this bight the coast
becomes almost straight, the line being hardly broken by rocky points and
shallow sandy bays, to Cape Leveque, on the North-East side of which we
found an indifferent anchorage just before sunset. Cape Lev