17?8. THE PACIFIC OCEAN* 249 



like a horse-shoe, which they hang at their noses ; 

 and several chissels, or pieces of iron, fixed to handles. 

 From their possessing which metals, we could infer that 

 they had either been visited before by some civilized 

 nation, or had connections with tribes on their con- 

 tinent, who had communication with them. But the 

 most extraordinary of all the articles which they 

 brought to the ships for sale were human skulls, and 

 hands not yet quite stripped of the flesh, which they 

 made our people plainly understand they had eaten ; 

 and, indeed, some of them had evident marks that 

 they had been upon the fire. We had but too much 

 reason to suspect, from this circumstance, that the 

 horrid practice of feeding on their enemies is as pre- 

 valent here as we had found it to be at New Zealand 

 and other South Sea islands. For the various articles 

 which they brought, they took in exchange knives, 

 chissels, pieces of iron and tin, nails, looking-glasses, 

 buttons, or any kind of metal. Glass beads they 

 were not fond of ; and cloth of every sort they re- 

 jected. 



We employed the next day in hauling our ships 

 into the cove, where they were moored head and 

 stern, fastening our hawsers to the trees on shore. On 

 heaving up the anchor of the Resolution, we found, 

 notwithstanding the great depth of water in which it 

 was let go, that there were rocks at the bottom. 

 These had done some considerable damage to the 

 cable ; and the hawsers that were carried out, to 

 warp the ship into the cove, also got foul of rocks j 

 from which it appeared that the whole bottom was 

 strewed with them. The ship being again very leaky 

 in her upper works, I ordered the carpenters to go 

 to work to calk her, and to repair such other de- 

 fects, as on examination we might discover. 



The fame of our arrival brought a great concourse 

 of the natives to our ships in the course of this day. 

 We counted above a hundred canoes at one time, 



