to set little value
on any thing else. The bows are made of split bamboo; and so strong, that
no man in the ship could bend one of them. The string is a broad slip of
cane, fixed to one end of the bow; and fitted with a noose, to go over
the other end, when strung. The arrow is a cane of about four feet long,
into which a pointed piece of the hard, heavy, _casuarina_ wood, is
firmly and neatly fitted; and some of them were barbed. Their clubs are
made of the _casuarina_, and are powerful weapons. The hand part is
indented, and has a small knob, by which the firmness of the grasp is
much assisted; and the heavy end is usually carved with some device: One
had the form of a parrot's head, with a ruff round the neck; and was not
ill done."]

Murray's largest island is nearly two miles long, by something more than
one in breadth; it is rather high land, and the hill at its western end
may be seen from a ship's deck at the distance of eight or nine leagues,
in a clear day. The two smaller isles seemed to be single hills, rising
abruptly from the sea, and to be scarcely accessible; nor did we see upon
them any fires, or other marks of inhabitants. On the shores of the large
island were many huts, surrounded by palisades, apparently of bamboo;
cocoa-nut trees were abundant, both on the low grounds and the sides of
the hills, and plantains, with some other fruits, had been brought to us.
There were many Indians sitting in groups upon the shore, and the seven
canoes which came off to the ship in the morning, contained from ten to
twenty men each, or together, about a hundred. If we suppose these
hundred men to have been one half of what belonged to the islands, and to
the two hundred men add as many women and three hundred children, the
population of Murray's Isles will amount to seven hundred; of which
nearly the whole must belong to the larger island.

The _latitude_ of the highest hill, deduced from that of the ship at the
following noon, is 9 deg. 54' south, and _longitude_ by the time keeper
corrected, 144 deg. 2' east; being 3' north, and 20' east of its position by
captain Edwards. A regular tide of about one knot an hour set E. by S.
and W. by N., past the ship; and by her swinging, it was high water at
half an hour after midnight, or about _ten hours and a half after_ the
moon had passed over the meridian. The bottom seemed to be loose at our
anchorage; but were these islands examined, it is probable that better
ground