JUNE 1769 TRAVELLING MUSICIANS 99 
12th. 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 
