j314 barter with natives. 



the giant of its race^ of a glossy reddish pink colour 

 with red mouth. 



During our stay here the ship was daily visited 

 by canoes from Pig Island and its vicinity^ also 

 from a village or two on South-east Island, a few 

 miles to the eastward of our anchorage. They 

 usually made their appearance in the morning and 

 remained for an hour or so^ bartering cocoa-nuts, 

 yams, ornaments and weapons for iron hoop, knives, 

 and axes. After leaving us, those coming from the 

 eastward, as the wind was unfavourable for their 

 return, landed at the mouth of the creek and waited 

 for the flood tide. Our intercourse throughout was 

 peaceful, which was fortunate for both parties, for, 

 if inchned to be hostile, the natives might frequently 

 have attacked our watering-boats while passing up 

 and down the river, impeded occasionally by dead 

 trees and shoals, with a dense forest on each side. 

 Latterly, however, as if suspicious of our intentions 

 or tired of our protracted stay, they fired the grass 

 on the hill at the entrance of the creek, possibly to 

 deter us from entering. Still we thought this 

 might have been done without reference to us, but 

 afterwards two or three men with spears were seen 

 by passing boats skulking along the banks of the 

 river on their way to the rapid, where they again 

 set fire to the grass as if to smoke us out or prevent 

 our return. But the grassy tracts along the tops 

 of the low hills in the vicinity being intersected by 

 lines and patches of brush the fire did not extend 



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