220 BRIERLY ISLAND AND NATIVES. 



rent delig-ht^ and a great deal of capering* and 

 dancing* about on the sand^ some strips of a g'audy 

 handkerchief conveyed to them by a lad decorated 

 with streamers of pandanus leaf at the elbows and 

 wrists — evidently the Adonis of the party. Some 

 of the men had formerly been off to the ship^ and 

 one or two carried axes of the usual form^ but 

 headed with pieces of our iron hoop_, neatly ground 

 to a fine edg*e. A few cocoa-nuts were given us for 

 a knife or two^ and we saw their mode of climbing* 

 for them^ which one man did with the ag*ility of a 

 monkey, ascending* first by a few notches, made 

 years ag-o, afterwards by clasping- the trunk with 

 his arms, arching* his body with the feet ag*ainst the 

 tree, and then walking* up precisely in the mode of 

 the Torres Strait Islanders. Like these last people 

 too, they open the nut with a sharp stick, and use a 

 shell (a piece of mother-of-pearl oyster) for scraping* 

 out the pulp. After a stay of half an horn' we 

 returned to the boat leaving* the natives in g*ood 

 humom\ Our search for a safe anchorag-e for the 

 ship was unsuccessful, so we returned on board. 



July ^rd. — After the g*ood understanding* which 

 appeared to have been established yesterday, I was 

 rather surprised at observing* the suspicious manner 

 in which we were received to-day by the people on 

 Brierlv Island. In two boats we went round to a 

 small sandy point on the northern side of the 

 island where seven or eig-ht canoes were hauled up 

 on the beach, but some time elapsed before any of 



