Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/182

124 expedients they make use of without success, till at last they find the watchmen asleep; they then go gently up to them, and lifting them off from the basket, which for security they have placed in their middle, they go off with their prize. The others awake and dance, but seem to show little regret for their loss, or indeed hardly to miss the basket at all.

9th. We resolved to sail as soon as the people left off bringing provisions, which about noon they did, and we again launched out into the ocean in search of what chance and Tupia might direct us to.

13th. Many albecores have been about the ship all this evening. Tupia took one, and had not his rod broken, would probably have taken many. He used an Indian fish-hook made of mother-of-pearl, so that it served at the same time for hook and bait.

At noon to-day, high land in sight, which proves to be an island which Tupia calls Oheteroa.

14th. The island of Oheteroa was to all appearance more barren than anything we have seen in these seas, the chief produce seeming to be etoa (from the wood of which the people make their weapons); indeed, everywhere along shore where we saw plantations, the trees were of this kind. It is without a reef, and the ground in the bay we were in was so foul and coralline, that although a ship might come almost close to the shore, she could not possibly anchor.

The people seemed strong, lusty, and well made, but were rather browner than those we have left behind; they were not tattowed like them, but had instead black marks about as broad as my hand under their armpits, the sides of which marks were deeply indented. They had also smaller circles round their arms and legs. Their dress was indeed most singular, as well as the cloth of which it was made. It consisted of the same materials as the inhabitants of the other islands make use of, and was generally dyed of a very bright deep yellow; upon this was spread in some cases a composition, either red or of a dark lead colour, which covered it like oil colour or varnish. Upon