APR. 1770 LAND AT BOTANY BAY 265 
in from fishing, the people landed, hauled up their boats 
and began to dress their dinner, to all appearance totally 
unmoved by us, though we were within little more than 
half a mile of them. On all these people whom we had 
seen so distinctly through our glasses, we had been unable 
to observe the least signs of clothing; myself, to the best of 
my judgment, plainly discerned that the women did not 
copy our mother Eve even in the fig-leaf. 
After dinner the boats were manned, and we set out 
from the ship, intending to land at the place where we saw 
these people, hoping that as they regarded the ship’s coming 
into the bay so little, they would as little regard our land- 
ing. We were in this, however, mistaken; for as soon as 
we approached the rocks two of the men came down, each 
armed with a lance about 10 feet long, and a short stick, 
which he seemed to handle as though it was a machine to 
throw the lance. They called to us very loudly in a harsh 
sounding language, of which neither we nor Tupia under- 
stood a word, shaking their lances and menacing; in all 
appearance resolved to dispute our landing to the utmost, 
though they were but two, and we thirty or forty at least. 
In this manner we parleyed with them for about a quarter 
of an hour, they waving to us to be gone; we again signing 
that we wanted water, and that we meant them no harm. 
They remained resolute: so a musket was fired over them, 
the effect of which was that the younger of the two dropped 
a bundle of lances on the rock the instant he heard 
the report. He, however, snatched them up again, and 
both renewed their threats and opposition. A musket 
loaded with small shot was now fired at the elder of the 
two, who was about forty yards from the boat; it struck 
him on the legs, but he minded it very little, so another 
was immediately fired at him. On this he ran up to the 
house, about a hundred yards distant, and soon returned 
with a shield. In the meantime we had landed on the rock. 
The man immediately threw a lance at us and the young 
man another, which fell among the thickest of us, but hurt 
nobody ; two more muskets with small shot were then fired 
