."]

At six o'clock in the morning of the 8th, we brought-to on the west side
of it, at the distance of about three quarters of a mile from the shore,
but we had no soundings with one hundred and forty fathom of line. We
now perceived several other low islands, or rather peninsulas, most of
them being joined one to the other by a neck of land, very narrow, and
almost level with the surface of the water, which breaks high over it.
In approaching these islands the cocoa-nut trees are first discovered,
as they are higher than any part of the surface. I sent a boat with an
officer from each ship to sound the lee-side of these islands for an
anchoring-place; and as soon as they left the ship, I saw the Indians
run down to the beach in great numbers, armed with long spears and
clubs; they kept abreast of the boats as they went sounding along the
shore, and used many threatening gestures to prevent their landing; I
therefore fired a nine-pound shot from the ship over their heads, upon
which they ran into the woods with great precipitation.[37] At ten
o'clock the boats returned, but could get no soundings close in with the
surf, which broke very high upon the shore. The middle of this cluster
of islands lies in latitude 14 deg.10'S., longitude 144 deg.52'W.; the variation
of the compass was here 4 deg.30'E.

At half an hour after ten, we bore away and made sail to the westward,
finding it impossible to procure at these islands any refreshment for
our sick, whose situation was becoming more deplorable every hour, and I
therefore called them the _Islands of Disappointment._

SECTION IX.

_The Discovery of King George's Islands, with a Description of them,
and an Account of several Incidents that happened there._

At half an hour after five o'clock in the afternoon of the 9th, we saw
land again, bearing W.S.W. at the distance of six or seven leagues; and
at seven we brought-to for the night. In the morning, being within three
miles of the shore, we discovered it to be a long low island, with a
white beach, of a pleasant appearance, full of cocoa-nut and other
trees, and surrounded with a rock of red coral. We stood along the
north-east side of it, within half a mile of the shore; and the savages,
as soon as they saw us, made great fires, as we supposed, to alarm the
distant inhabitants of the island, and ran along the beach, abreast of
the ship, in great numbers, armed in the same manner as the natives of
the Islands of D