830 cook's voyage to may, 



first thing they met with was the rudder of one of 

 the boats, which they threw over-board to those of 

 their party who had remained in the canoes. Before 

 they had time to find another object that pleased 

 their fancy, the crew were alarmed, and began to 

 come upon deck armed with cutlasses. On seeing 

 this, the whole company of plunderers sneaked off 

 into their canoes, with as much deliberation and in- 

 difference as they had given up the boat ; and they 

 were observed describing to those who had not been 

 on board, how much longer the knives of the ship's 

 crew were than their own. It was at this time, that 

 my boat was on the sounding duty ; which they must 

 have seen ; for they proceeded directly for her, after 

 their disappointment at the Discovery. I have not 

 the least doubt, that their visiting us so very early in 

 the morning, was with a view to plunder ; on a sup- 

 position, that they should find every body asleep. 



May we not, from these circumstances, reasonably 

 infer, that these people are unacquainted with fire- 

 arms ? For certainly, if they had known any thing 

 of their effect, they never would have dared to at- 

 tempt taking a boat from under a ship's guns, in the 

 face of above a hundred men ; for most of my people 

 were looking at them, at the very instant they made 

 the attempt. However, after all these tricks, we had 

 the good fortune to leave them as ignorant, in this 

 respect, as we found them. For they neither heard 

 nor saw a musket fired, unless at birds. 



Just as we were going to weigh the anchor, to pro- 

 ceed farther up the bay, it began to blow and to rain as 

 hard as before ; so that we were obliged to bear away 

 the cable again, and lay fast. Toward the evening, find- 

 ingthat the gale did not moderate, and that it might 

 be some time before an opportunity offered to get 

 higher up, I came to a resolution to heel the ship 

 where we were ; and with this view, moored her with 

 a kedge-anchor and hawser. In heaving the anchor 

 out of the boat, one of the seamen, either through ig- 



