356 cook's second voyage may, 



resolved to go, lest these fellows should be (by our 

 refusal) encouraged to commit greater acts of vio- 

 lence ; and, as their proceeding would soon reach 

 Ulietea, where I intended to go next, the people 

 there might be induced to treat us in the same man- 

 ner, or worse, they being more numerous. Accord- 

 ingly, I landed with forty-eight men, including 

 officers, Mr. Forster, and some others of the gen- 

 tlemen. The chief joined us with a few people, and 

 we began to march, in search of the banditti, in good 

 order. As we proceeded, the chief's party increased 

 like a snow-ball. Oedidee, who was with us, began 

 to be alarmed, observing, that many of the people in 

 our company were of the very party we were going 

 against, and at last telling us that they were only 

 leading us to some place where they could attack us 

 to advantage. Whether there was any truth in this, 

 or it was only Oedidee's fears, I will not pretend to 

 say. He, however, was the only person we could 

 confide in, and we regulated our motions according 

 to the information he had given us. After marching 

 some miles we got intelligence that the men we were 

 going after had fled to the mountains ; but I think 

 this was not till I had declared to the chief I would 

 proceed no farther. For we were then about cross- 

 ing a deep valley, bounded on each side by steep 

 rocks, where a few men, with stones only, might have 

 made our retreat difficult, if their intentions were 

 what Oedidee had suggested, and which he still per- 

 sisted in. Having come to a resolution to return, we 

 marched back in the same order as we went, and saw, 

 in several places, people, who had been following us, 

 coming down from the sides of the hills with their 

 arms in their hands, which they instantly quitted and 

 hid in the bushes, when they saw they were discovered 

 by us. This seemed to prove that there must have 

 been some foundation for what Oedidee had said \ 

 but I cannot believe the chief had any such design, 

 whatever the people might have. In our return we 



