A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels ... - Nauticus

and a party of seamen, in three boats, and rowed in for the shore. It hath been already mentioned, that thetwo divisions of the natives were drawn up on each side the landing-place. They had left a space betweenthem of about thirty or forty yards, in which were laid, to the most advantage, a few small bunches ofplantains, a yam, and two or three roots. Between these and the water were stuck upright in the sand, forwhat purpose I never could learn, four small reeds, about two feet from each other, in a line at right anglesto the shore, where they remained for two or three days after. The old man before-mentioned, and twomore, stood by these things, inviting us, by signs, to land; but I had not forgot the trap I was so near beingcaught in at the last island; and this looked something like it. We answered, by making signs for the twodivisions to retire farther back, and give us more room. The old man seemed to desire them so to do, but nomore regard was paid to him than to us. More were continually joining them, and, except two or three oldmen, not one unarmed. In short, every thing conspired to make us believe they meant to attack us as soonas we should be on shore; the consequence of which was easily supposed; many of them must have beenkilled and wounded, and we should hardly have escaped unhurt; two things I equally wished to prevent.Since, therefore, they would not give us the room required, I thought it was better to frighten them into it,than to oblige them by the deadly effect of our fire-arms. I accordingly ordered a musquet to be fired overthe party on our right, which was by far the strongest body; but the alarm it gave them was momentary. Inan instant they recovered themselves and began to display their weapons. One fellow shewed us hisbackside, in a manner which plainly conveyed his meaning.After this I ordered three or four more musquets to be fired. This was the signal for the ship to fire a fewgreat guns, which presently dispersed them; and then we landed, and marked out the limits, on the rightand left, by a line. Our old friend stood his ground, though deserted by his two companions, and I rewardedhis confidence with a present. The natives came gradually to us, seemingly in a more friendly manner;some even without their weapons, but by far the greatest part brought them; and when we made signs tolay them down, they gave us to understand that we must lay down ours first. Thus all parties stood armed.The presents I made to the old people, and to such as seemed to be of consequence, had little effect on theirconduct. They indeed climbed the cocoa-nut trees, and threw us down the nuts, without requiring any thingfor them; but I took care that they should always have somewhat in return. I observed that many wereafraid to touch what belonged to us; and they seemed to have no notion of exchanging one thing foranother. I took the old man (whose name we now found to be Paowang) to the woods, and made himunderstand, I wanted to cut down some trees to take on board the ship; cutting some down at the sametime, which we put into one of our boats, together with a few small casks of water, with a view of lettingthe people see what it was we chiefly wanted. Paowang very readily gave his consent to cut wood; nor wasthere any one who made the least objection. He only desired the cocoa-nut trees might not be cut down.Matters being thus settled, we embarked and returned on board to dinner, and, immediately after, they alldispersed. I never learnt that any one was hurt by our shot, either on this or the preceding day; which was avery happy circumstance. In the afternoon having landed again, we loaded the launch with water, andhaving made three hauls with the seine, caught upwards of three hundred pounds of mullet and other fish.It was some time before any of the natives appeared, and not above twenty or thirty at last, amongst whomwas our trusty friend Paowang, who made us a present of a small pig, which was the only one we got atthis isle, or that was offered to us.During the night the volcano, which was about four miles to the west of us, vomited up vast quantities offire and smoke, as it had also done the night before; and the flames were seen to rise above the hill whichlay between us and it. At every eruption it made a long rumbling noise like that of thunder, or the blowingup of large mines. A heavy shower of rain, which fell at this time, seemed to increase it; and the windblowing from the same quarter, the air was loaded with its ashes, which fell so thick that every thing wascovered with the dust. It was a kind of fine sand, or stone, ground or burnt to powder, and was exceedingly