Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/323

Rh 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 landing. 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 understood 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