eace. They now, however, came in a very different spirit; for
several of them caught hold of two anchors which hung over the bows, and
began tugging away, expecting to draw the ship ashore. The rest, coming
up on either side, began, with loud shouts and cries, to hurl stones
from their slings, and to cast their darts. On this Captain Schouten
ordered the guns to be fired, when the shot quickly knocked the canoes
to pieces, killed twelve or thirteen men, and wounded a much larger
number, when the rest at once took to flight.

The Dutch now continued their cruise round the northern end of New
Guinea. Passing a large group of islands, twenty-three in number, of
different sizes, some high, others low, most of them being left on the
starboard side, their hearts were cheered by coming in sight of a lofty
mountain, which they took to be the hill of Banda, but which was in
reality several degrees of latitude off from it.

On the 7th they approached a range of lofty hills, some of which they
found were volcanoes, for which reason they named the island Volcano
Island. It was thickly inhabited, and abounded in cocoa-nut trees. The
people regarded the ship with evident terror, and would not come near
her. Steering west-south-west, and occasionally altering their course
to the west-north-west, they anchored on the 8th about a cannon-shot
from the shore between two islands, one lofty and the other somewhat
lower. It was inhabited by Papuans, whose mode of bedecking themselves,
owing to their natural deformity, made them literally appear like
monsters. Nearly the whole of them had their limbs fearfully misshapen,
besides which they had strings of hogs'-teeth hung about their necks,
rings in their noses, their hair frizzled, and their faces black and
ugly. Their habitations were remarkable, being light structures of
bamboo, mounted on stakes eight or nine feet above the ground, and close
to the water. There were two villages near the shore, from whence the
inhabitants brought off hogs and cocoa-nuts, but so high a price was
demanded that none were purchased.

By the morning of the 5th they reckoned that they were off the extreme
western part of New Guinea, along which they had sailed two hundred and
eighty leagues. Here several canoes came off, bringing beans, rice,
tobacco, and two beautiful birds of paradise. The natives spoke the
language of Ternate, and some of them a little Spanish and Malayan.
They were clothed fro