JUNE 1769 TRAVELLING MUSICIANS 99 



12t7i. In my morning's walk to-day I met a company of 

 travelling musicians ; they told me where they should be at 

 night, so after supper we all repaired to the place. There 

 was a large concourse of people round the band, which con- 

 sisted of two flutes and three drums, the drummers ac- 

 companying their music with their voices. They sang 

 many songs, generally in praise of us, for these gentlemen, 

 like Homer of old, must be poets as well as musicians. The 

 Indians seeing us entertained with their music, asked us to 

 sing them an English song, which we most readily agreed 

 to, and received much applause, so much so that one of the 

 musicians became desirous of going to England to learn to 

 sing. These people, by what we can learn, go about from 

 house to house, the master of the house and the audience 

 paying them for their music in cloth, meat, beads, or any- 

 thing else which the one wants and the other can spare. 



13th. Mr. Monkhouse, our surgeon, met to-day with an 

 insult from an Indian, the first that has been met with by 

 any of us ; he was pulling a flower from a tree which grew 

 on a burial-ground, and was consequently, I suppose, sacred, 

 when an Indian came behind him and struck him ; Mr. 

 Monkhouse caught and attempted to beat him, but was pre- 

 vented by two more, who, coming up, seized hold of his hair 

 and rescued their companion, after which they all ran away. 



14th. I lay in the woods last night, as I very often do; 

 at daybreak I was called up by Mr. Gore and went with him 

 shooting. We did not return till night, when we saw a 

 large number of canoes in the river behind the tents. It 

 appears that last night an Indian was clever enough to steal 

 a coal-rake out of the fort without being perceived ; in the 

 morning it was missed, and Captain Cook being resolved to 

 recover it, and also to discourage such attempts for the 

 future, went out with a party of men and seized twenty-five 

 of their large sailing canoes which had just come in from 

 Tethurva, a neighbouring island, with a supply of fish. The 

 coal-rake was upon this soon brought back, but Captain 

 Cook thought he had now an opportunity of recovering all 

 the things which had been stolen ; he therefore proclaimed 



