140 Transactions. 



countrymen at this time, was fired by the desire of making dis- 

 coveries in the comparatively unknown South Seas. It con- 

 sisted, as was usual in those days, for mutual assistance and 

 support, of two companion vessels — the " Marquis de Castries," 

 commanded by the Chevalier Duclesmeur, and the " Mascarin," 

 commanded by Marion, who had also charge of the expedition. 

 The vessels sailed from Mauritius, or the Isle of France, as it 

 was then called. The course taken was by the Cape of Good 

 Hope, Van Diemen's Land, New Zealand, Guam, Manila, and 

 thence home. For six days they anchored in Frederick Henrv 

 Bay, Van Diemen's Land, searching, but unavailingly, for 

 water. Their reception by the natives was of a very unfriendly 

 and, indeed, ferocious kind. One incident serves to show how 

 easy it is to misinterpret the actions of savages, and what 

 unexpected results may follow therefrom. When M. Marion 

 landed, a savage stepped out from the group of Natives and 

 offered him a firebrand, apparently in order to light a little 

 pile of wood. The commander, thinking that this was a cere- 

 mony intended to show that he was credited with pacific inten- 

 tions by the islanders, did not hesitate to light the pile. But 

 it immediately appeared that this was quite wrong, and that 

 the acceptance of the brand was an acceptance of a defiance, or 

 a declaration of war. Thereupon, with a fearful cry, the whole 

 mob of Natives attacked the party with stones and spears, 

 wounding several. The Natives are described as of ordinary 

 height, black, with woolly hair tied in knots and powdered 

 with red ochre. Several had on the skin of the chest those 

 white ornamental scars or cicatrices which it is known are so 

 common amongst Australian blacks. Finding the country as 

 wild as its inhabitants, Marion sailed for New Zealand, and it 

 is here that the mournful interest of his voyage lies. For a 

 month — this was in April, 1772 — the vessels were lying off and 

 on the west and north coasts of the North Island, and here 

 Marion pays a high tribute to the chart which had already 

 been laid down by Cook, and by which he was steering. " I 

 found it," he says, " of an exactitude and of a thoroughness of 

 detail which astonished me beyond all powers of expression, 

 and I doubt much whether the charts of our own French coasts 

 are laid down with greater precision." At last the anchor was 

 dropped in the Bay of Islands, not far from the island of Motuara, 

 upon which the sick were placed and a guard picketed. The 

 Natives speedily came on board, unarmed, and with the greatest 

 confidence, and soon created a most favourable impression upon 

 the visitors — a very different one, indeed, from that of the 

 Van-Diemonians. A small trade or barter sprang up, and in a 

 few days there was the most affectionate feeling between the 



