1774*' ROUND THE WORLD. 357 



halted at a convenient place to refresh ourselves. I 

 ordered the people to bring us some cocoa-nuts, which 

 they did immediately. Indeed, by this time, I be- 

 lieve many of them wished us on board out of the 

 way; for although no one step was taken that could 

 give them the least alarm, they certainly were in ter- 

 ror. Two chiefs brought each of them a pig, a dog, 

 and some young plantain trees, the usual peace-offer- 

 ings, and, with due ceremony, presented them singly 

 to me. Another brought a very large hog, with 

 which he followed us to the ship. After this we 

 continued our course to the landing place, where I 

 caused several vollies to be fired, to convince the na- 

 tives that we could support a continual fire. This 

 being done, we all embarked and went on board ; 

 and soon after the chief following, brought with him 

 a quantity of fruit, and sat down with us to dinner. 

 We had scarce dined before more fruit was brought 

 us by others, and two hogs ; so that we were likely to 

 make more by this little excursion than by all the 

 presents we had made them. It certainly gave them 

 some alarm to see so strong a party of men march 

 into their country; and probably gave them a better 

 opinion of fire-arms than they had before. For I be- 

 lieve they had but an indifferent, or rather contempt- 

 ible idea of musquets in general, having never seen 

 any fired but at birds, &c. by such of our people as 

 used to straggle about the country, the most of them 

 but indifferent marksmen, losing generally two shots 

 out of three, their pieces often missing fire, and being 

 slow in charging. Of all this they had taken great 

 notice, and concluded, as well they might, that fire- 

 arms were not so terrible things as they had been 

 taught to believe. 



When the chiefs took leave in the evening, they 

 promised to bring us the next day a very large supply 

 of provisions. In the article of fruit they were as 

 good as their word, but of hogs, which we most 

 wanted, they brought far less than we expected. 



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