26 ANNIVEESAET ADDRESS. 



woolly head like that of the negroes, and a small beard, but he 

 was well-featured, and not so black as the natives of Gruinea ; 

 he was of the common stature, and, like all the rest of the people 

 whom we had seen upon the island, quite naked. His canoe was 

 very small, and of rude workmanship — being nothing more than 

 part of the trunk of a tree made hollow ; it had, however, an out- 

 rigger, but none of them had sails. 



" The inhabitants of Egmont Island, whose persons have been 

 described already, are extremely nimble, vigorous, and active, and 

 seem to be almost as well qualified to live in the water as upon 

 the land, for they were in and out of their canoes almost every 

 minute. The canoes that came out against us from the west end 

 of the island were all like that which our people brought on 

 board, and might probably, upon occasion, carry about a dozen 

 men, though three or four managed them with amazing dexterity. 

 We saw, however, others of a larger size upon the beach, with 

 awnings or shades over them. 



" We got two of their bows, and a bundle of their arrows, from 

 the canoe that was taken with the wounded man ; and with these 

 weapons they do execution at an incredible distance. One of 

 them went through the boat's washboard, and dangerously 

 wounded a midshipman in the thigh. Their arrows were pointed 

 with flint, and we saw among them no appearance of any metal." 



This, then, is what occurred in 1767. Nor is this all. In 

 1568, two centuries before (within a year), Mendana, 'who 

 about that time discovered Santa Cruz, and all subsequent navi- 

 gators, whether Trench or English, found the inhabitants of the 

 great island groups and archipelagoes of that part of the Pacific, 

 ferocious, treacherous, and bloodthirsty ; so that conjectures as 

 to the immediate cause of any given catastrophe may be attributed 

 in part to tlie sudden excitement of the natives or to some impru- 

 dence on the part of visitors, as well as to the utu, or retaliation 

 on past oifenders. In Carteret's account this is distinctly stated ; 

 and it is impossible to say in what way the Bishop and the Com- 

 modore might have infrcicted some rule unknown to them. That 



