APPEARANCE OF THE SHORES. 455 



Pabok a present, which he well deserved for his 

 good services. 



The g\g was accordingly sent in shore to sound, 

 and soon made the signal of having found an anchor- 

 age, upon which we stood in, greatly to the delight 

 of the natives, who, as they were not armed, were 

 allowed to come on hoard, where they behaved very 

 well. Some went aloft with great activity to assist 

 in furling sails, and two came aft to the wheel, the 

 use of which they seemed to understand perfectly. 



At one o'clock we anchored in 11 fathoms sand 

 and coral, three quarters of a mile from the shore ; 

 and as soon as the ship was secured, a party of us 

 landed, accompanied by the old chief, and followed 

 by most of the natives in their canoes. 



On landing, the contrast to the Australian shores 

 we had so recently sailed from, was very striking. 

 We left a land covered with the monotonous inter- 

 minable forest of the eucalyptus or gum-tree, which, 

 from the peculiar structure of its leaf, affords but 

 little shelter from the tropical sun. Shores fringed 

 with impenetrable mangroves ; a soil producing 

 scarcely any indigenous vegetable, either in the shape 

 of root or fruit fit for food. The natives black, naked, 

 lowest in the scale of civilized life ; their dwellings, 

 if such they can be called, formed by spreading the 

 bark rudely torn from the tree, over a few twigs 

 placed in the ground, under which they creep for 

 shelter ; dependent almost entirely on the success 



