VII. 



Jan. 

 1826. 



PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 211 



toward the centre that in high tides there can be C J? AP 

 no communication with the extremities. The island 

 is steep, like all the other coral islands, and well 

 wooded with cocoa-nut and pandanus-trees, and has 

 one of the large clumps at its N. W. extremity. 



Upon the windward island we perceived about 

 fifty inhabitants collected upon the beach ; the men 

 in one groupe, armed in the same manner as the 

 Lagoon Islanders, and the women in another place 

 more inland. No boat could land on this or on any 

 other part of the island : to leeward the S. W. swell 

 rolled even more heavily upon the shore than that 

 occasioned by the trade-wind on the opposite side : 

 we were in consequence obliged to trade with the 

 natives in the manner pursued at Lagoon Island. 

 Two of the islanders, when they thought we were 

 going to land, advanced with slow strides, and went 

 through a number of pantomimic gestures, which 

 we could not understand, except that they were of 

 a friendly nature. This lasted until the boats an- 

 chored outside the reef, and they were invited to 

 accept some pieces of " toki." Gold and silver are not 

 more valued in European countries, than iron, even 

 in its rudest form, is by the islanders of Polynesia. 

 At the sound of the word, the two spokesmen, and 

 all the natives, who had before been seated under 

 the shade of the trees, ran off to their huts, and 

 brought down whatever they thought likely to ob- 

 tain a piece of the precious substance, — mats, bands, 

 nets, oyster-shells, hooks, and a variety of small arti- 

 cles similar to those before described were offered 

 for sale. The only article they would not part 

 with, though we offered a higher price than it 

 seemed to deserve, was a stick with a bunch of 



p 2 



