6o COOK »s VOYAGE, 
the inner fouth point, quite to the head of the harbour; but 
over towards the north and north weft ftiore there is a channel 
of twelve or fourteen feet at low water, for three or four leagues, 
up to a place where there is three or four fathom, but here I 
Jfonnd very little frefh water. We anchored near the fouth 
fhore, about a mile within the entrance, for the convenience 
of failing with a foutherly wind, and becaufe I thought it the 
beft fituation for watering ; but I afterwards found a very fine 
ftream on the north fhore, in the firft fandy cove within the 
ifland, before which a fhip might lie aimed land-locked, and 
procure wood as well as water in great abundance. Wood in- 
deed is every where plenty, but I faw only two kinds 
which may be confidered as timber. Thefe trees are as large, 
or larger than the Englifh oak, and one of them has not a 
very different appearance : this is the fame that yields the red- 
difh gum like fanguis dracanis, and the wood is heavy, hard, 
and dark-coloured, like lignum vita .- the other grows tall 
and ftrait, fometliing like the pine ; and the wood of this, 
which has feme refemblance to the live oak of America, is al- 
fo hard and heavy. There are a few fhrubs, and feveral kinds 
of the palm ; mangroves alfo grow in great plenty near the 
head of the bay. The country in general is level, Jow, and 
woody, as far as we could fee. The woods, as I have before 
obferved, abound with birds of exquifite beauty, particularly 
of the parrot kind ; we found alfo crows here, exactly the 
fame with thofe in England. About the head of the harbour, 
where there are large flats of fand and mud, there is great 
plenty of water-fowl, moft of which were altogether unknow nto 
us : one of the moft remarkable was black and white, much 
larger than a fwan, and in fhape femewhat refembling a pe- • 
lican. On thefe banks of fand and mud there are great quan- 
tities of oyfters, mufcles, cockles, and other fhell-filh, which 
feem to be the principal fubfiftence of the inhabitants, who go 
into fhcal water with their little canoes, and pick them out 
with their hands. We did not obferve that they eat any of 
them raw, nor do they always go on fhore to drefs them, for 
they have frequently fires in their canoes for that purpofe. 
They do not however fubiift wholly upon this food, for they 
catch a variety of other fifh, fome of which they ftrike with 
gigs, and fome they take with hook and line. All the inha- 
bitants that w'e faw were ftark naked : they did" not appear to 
be numerous, nor to live in focieties, but like other animals 
were fcattered about along the coaft, and in the woods. Of 
their manner of life, however, we could know but little, as 
we w'ere never able to form the leaft connexion svith them : af- 
ter the firft conteft at our landing, they would never come near 
enough to parley ; nor did they touch a Angle article of all 
