44 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



culty in getting information at Pieton. Round the cainp- 

 fire on our first night we tried to fix it. Mr. Ratcliffe, 

 after reading Lieutenant Burney's report, affirmed that the 

 place described could not be very far from where we were, 

 and, on opening the packet of photographs, our surprise was 

 great to find that we were actually at Grass Cove, and sit- 

 ting but a few yards from where the unfortunate men were 

 killed. The feeling was rather awesome, notwithstanding 

 the 128 years that had elapsed, the occurrence and details 

 being vividly before our minds. There was no doubt about 

 it, for the place tallied with what Lieutenant Burney de- 

 scribed. 



Now that Grass Cove had been so easily found, I thought 

 that our third day could not be better spent than in trying to 

 go over the course taken by Burney in his search for his miss- 

 ing shipmates. Therefore the following morning we were up 

 soon after the bell-birds and under way, armed with the 

 modern chart and the lieutenant's old report. The instruc- 

 tions given to Mr. Burney by Captain Furneaux were to 

 '■look well into East Bay, and if no sign of the boat there then 

 to proceed to Grass Cove." Burney's com-se across the Sound 

 we knew, for he mentions passing Long Island and rounding 

 Long Point. We rightly concluded that the Clarke Point on 

 the modern chart was the Long Point of Cook. Mr. Burney 

 was in charge of a boat heavily laden with a good number of 

 men, with their muskets and ammunition and three days' pro- 

 visions, and his pace through the water would not be as fast 

 a,s our modern oil-launch. Some rough calculation was there- 

 fore necessary to fit our time and distances in with his. We 

 found that Mr. Burney explored into wdrat is now called 

 Gilbert Bay and along the north shore of East Bay, and, not 

 finding any traces of the missing boat there, crossed over the 

 bay to the east shore. We got on his tracks on the east 

 side, where he says there was a native settlement. Although 

 no natives live there now, and the place is all overgrown, Mr. 

 Ratcliffe, who was with us, knew the spot to be where a pa 

 had once been. 



On a small beach adjoining to Grass Cove Burney found 

 the first evidence that a massacre had taken place, for some 

 baskets had just been brought there by a canoe. In these 

 baskets were cooked human flesh and fern-root, also the hand 

 of a white man with " TH " tattooed upon it. From the site 

 of the old pa to this small beach took us twenty-two minutes. 

 Burnev records that his time was within an hour. Mr. 

 Burney's report says, " I launched the canoe with intent to 

 destroy her, but, seeing a great smoke ascending over the 

 nearest hill, I got all the people into the boat and made what 

 haste I could to be with them before sunset. On opening the 



