Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/108

50 and at which they seemed mightily pleased, so much so that when we embarked again on our boat three of them came with us and went aboard the ship. One seemed to be a priest or conjuror, at least we thought so by the noises he made, possibly exorcising every part of the ship he came into, for when anything new caught his attention, he shouted as loud as he could for some minutes, without directing his speech either to us or to any one of his countrymen. They ate bread and beef which we gave them, though not heartily, but carried the largest part away with them. They would not drink either wine or spirits, but returned the glass, though not before they had put it to their mouths and tasted a drop. We conducted them over the greater part of the ship, and they looked at everything without any remarks of extraordinary admiration, unless the noise which our conjuror did not fail to repeat at every new object he saw might be reckoned as such.

After having been aboard about two hours, they expressed a desire to go ashore, and a boat was ordered to carry them. I went with them, and landed them among their countrymen, but I cannot say that I observed either the one party curious to ask questions, or the other to relate what they had seen, or what usage they had met with; so after having stayed ashore about half an hour, I returned to the ship, and the Indians immediately marched off from the shore.

16th. This morning very early Dr. Solander and I, with our servants and two seamen to assist in carrying baggage, and accompanied by Messrs. Monkhouse and Green, set out from the ship to try to penetrate as far as we could into the country, and, if possible, gain the tops of the hills, which alone were not overgrown with trees. We entered the woods at a small sandy beach a little to the westward of the watering-place, and continued pressing through pathless thickets, always going uphill, until three o'clock, before we gained even a near view of the places we intended to go to. The weather had all this time been vastly fine, much like a sunshiny day in May, so that neither heat nor cold was troublesome to us, nor were there any insects to molest us,