1770. ROUND THE WORLD. 195 



At four o'clock in the afternoon, we anchored, 

 being about a mile and a half, or two miles, with- 

 in the entrance, in six fathom and a half, with clear 

 ground : the channel here had begun to widen, 

 and the islands on each side of us were dis- 

 tant about a mile : the main land stretched away to 

 the S. W., the farthest point in view bore S. 48 W., 

 and the southermost point of the islands, on the 

 north-west side of the passage, bore S. 76 W. Be- 

 tween these two points we could see no land, so that 

 we conceived hopes of having, at last, found a pas- 

 sage into the Indian sea ; however, that I might be 

 able to determine with more certainty, I resolved to 

 land upon the island which lies at the south-east 

 point of the passage. Upon this island we had seen 

 many of the inhabitants when we first came to an 

 anchor ; and when I w T ent into the boat with a party 

 of men, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solan- 

 der, in order to go ashore, we saw ten of them upon 

 a hill : nine of them were armed with such lances as 

 we had been used to see, and the tenth had a bow, 

 and a bundle of arrows, which we had never seen in 

 the possession of the natives of this country before : 

 we also observed, that two of them had large orna- 

 ments of mother-of-pearl hanging round their necks. 

 Three of these, one of whom was the bowman, placed 

 themselves upon the beach abreast of us, and we ex- 

 pected that they would have opposed our landing, 

 but when we came within about a musket's shot of 

 the beach, they walked leisurely away. We imme- 

 diately climbed the highest hill, which was not more 

 than three times as high as the mast-head, and the 

 most barren of any we had seen. From this hill, no 

 land could be seen between the S. W. and W. S. W., 

 so that I had no doubt of finding a channel through. 

 The land to the north-west of it consisted of a great 

 number of islands of various extent, and different 

 heights, ranged one behind another, as far to the 



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