isappointment. Over the land on this side of the island
we could see a large lake of salt water, or lagoon, which appeared to be
two or three leagues wide, and to reach within a small distance of the
opposite shore. Into this lagoon we saw a small inlet about a league
from the south-west point, off which we brought-to. At this place the
natives have built a little town, under the shade of a fine grove of
cocoa-nut trees. I immediately sent off the boats, with an officer in
each, to sound; but they could find no anchorage, the shore being every
where as steep as a wall, except at the very mouth of the inlet, which
was scarcely a ship's length wide, and there they had thirteen fathom,
with a bottom of coral rock. We stood close in with the ships, and saw
hundreds of the savages, ranged in very good order, and standing up to
their waists in water; they were all armed in the same manner as those
that we had seen at the other islands, and one of them carried a piece
of mat fastened to the top of a pole which we imagined was an ensign.
They made a most hideous and incessant noise, and in a short time many
large canoes came down the lake to join them. Our boats were still out,
and the people on board them made all the signs of friendship that they
could invent, upon which some of the canoes came through the inlet and
drew near them. We now began to hope that a friendly intercourse might
be established; but we soon discovered that the Indians had no other
design than to haul the boats on shore: Many of them leaped off the
rocks, and swam to them; and one of them got into that which belonged to
the Tamar, and in the twinkling of an eye seized a seaman's jacket, and
jumping over board with it, never once appeared above water till he was
close in shore among his companions. Another of them got hold of a
midshipman's hat, but not knowing how to take it off, he pulled it
downward instead of lifting it up so that the owner had time to prevent
its being taken away, otherwise it would probably have disappeared as
suddenly as the jacket. Our men bore all this with much patience, and
the Indians seemed to triumph in their impunity.

[Footnote 37: "They were in much greater number than at the other
island, and followed us in the same manner, several hundreds of them
running along the coast in great disorder."--"They had many canoes,
which, on our approaching the shore, they dragged into the woods, and at
the same time, the women came with