320 COOK S FIRST VOYAGE NOV. 



be well inhabited, many towns were in sight, and 

 some hundreds of large canoes lay under them upon 

 the beach ; but this day, after having sailed about 

 fifteen leagues, it appeared to be barren and desolate. 

 As far as we had yet coasted this country from Cape 

 Turnagain, the people acknowledged one chief, 

 whom they called Teratu, and to whose residence 

 they pointed, in a direction that we thought to be 

 very tar inland, but afterwards found to be other- 

 wise. 



About one o'clock, three canoes came off to us 

 from the main, with one-and-twenty men on board. 

 The construction of these vessels appeared to be 

 more simple than that of any we had seen, they being 

 nothing more than trunks of a single tree hollowed by 

 fire, without any convenience or ornament. The 

 people on board were almost naked, and appeared to 

 be of a browner complexion ; yet naked and despi- 

 cable as they were, they sung their song of defiance, 

 and seemed to denounce against us inevitable de- 

 struction : they remained, however, some time out 

 of stone's throw, and then venturing nearer, with less 

 appearance of hostility, one of our men went to the 

 ship's side, and was about to hand them a rope ; this 

 courtesy, however, they thought fit to return by 

 throwing a lance at him, which having missed him, 

 they immediately threw another into the ship : upon 

 this a musket was fired over them, which at once sent 

 them away. 



About two, we saw a large opening, or inlet, for 

 which we bore up; we had now forty-one fathom 

 water, which gradually decreased to nine, at which 

 time we were one mile and a half distant from a high 

 towered rock which lay near the south point of the 

 inlet : this rock, and the nothernmost of the Court 

 of Alderman being in one, bearing S. 61 E. 



About seven in the evening we anchored in seven 

 fathom, a little within the south entrance of the bay : 

 to this place we were accompanied by several canoes 



