1770. ROUND THE WORLD. 391 



also talked to us of Ulimaroa, concerning which he 

 had some confused traditionary notions, not very 

 different from those of our old man, so that we could 

 draw no certain conclusion from the accounts of either. 



Soon after the ship came to an anchor the second 

 time, Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went on shore, to 

 see if any gleanings of natural knowledge remained; 

 and by accident fell in with the most agreeable 

 Indian family they had seen, which afforded them a 

 better opportunity of remarking the personal subor- 

 dination among these people than had before offered. 

 The principal persons were a widow, and a pretty 

 boy about ten years old : the widow was mourning 

 for her husband with tears of blood, according to 

 their custom, and the child, by the death of its 

 father, was become proprietor of the land where we 

 had cut our wood. The mother and the son were 

 sitting upon mats, and the rest of the family, to the 

 number of sixteen or seventeen, of both sexes, sat 

 round them in the open air, for they did not appear 

 to have any house, or other shelter from the weather, 

 the inclemencies of which custom has probably en- 

 abled them to endure without any lasting inconve- 

 nience. Their whole behaviour was aftable, obliging, 

 and unsuspicious : they presented each person with 

 fish, and a brand of fire to dress it, and pressed them 

 many times to stay till the morning, which they 

 would certainly have done if they had not expected 

 the ship to sail, greatly regretting that they had not 

 become acquainted with them sooner, as they made 

 no doubt but that more knowledge of the manners 

 and disposition of the inhabitants of this country 

 would have been obtained from them in a day than 

 they had yet been able to acquire during our whole 

 stay upon the coast. 



On the 6th, about six o'clock in the morning, a 

 light breeze sprung up at north, and we again got 

 under sail ; but the wind proving variable, we reached 

 no farther than just without Motuara ; in the after- 



c c 4 



