27S VOYAGE IN SEARCH 



them ; but a fky-rocket, which was aimed with 

 much precilion, and which burft quite clofe to 

 their canoe, threw them into great confler- 

 nation. 



The other canoes had alfo taken tp ftight, bup 

 they had foon returned. 



This cowardly adl of treachery, and the con- 

 duct which thefe flivages had obfcrved towards 

 Captain Surville, convinced us that they had 

 been governed only by perfidious intentions 

 when they had employed all forts of means to 

 try to induce us to land on their fhores. 



On the 30th the little wind that blew by in- 

 tervals from north-weft to weft north-weft, 

 fcarcely gave the fhip fteerage-way, and the 

 currents carried us very perceptibly towards 

 the Ifie des Contrariitts. The weather was very 

 fine when we faw it, and the engraving which 

 Surville has publifhed of it reprefents it with 

 much exacflnefs. We were three kilometers; 

 from it, when a canoe put off from the coaft to. 

 come alongfide of our fliip. In her were four 

 natives, who were grateful for the prefents of 

 cloth and hardware that we made them, for im- 

 mediately after they gave us in return feveral 

 cocoa-nuts, which they called niooy like moft; of 

 the other inhabitants of the South Sea. 



They expreifed the moft lively joy at the fight 

 of the nails which wc olTcred them ; they incef- 



fantly 



