ives, whom I saw along
the shore, and purchased a small quantity of fish.

On the 30th, early in the morning, I sent a boat to one of the islands
for celery, and while the people were gathering it, about twenty of the
natives, men, women, and children, landed near some empty huts: As soon
as they were on shore, five or six of the women sat down, upon the
ground together, and began to cut their legs, arms, and faces, with
shells, and sharp pieces of talc or jasper, in a terrible manner. Our
people understood that their husbands had lately been killed by their
enemies; but while they were performing this horrid ceremony, the men
set about repairing the huts, with the utmost negligence and unconcern.
The carpenter having prepared two posts to be left as memorials of our
having visited this place, I ordered them to be inscribed with the
ship's name, and the year and month; one of them I set up at the
watering-place, hoisting the union flag upon the top of it; and the
other I carried over to the island that lies nearest to the sea, called
by the natives _Motuara_. I went first to the village or Hippah,
accompanied by Mr Monkhouse and Tupia, where I met with our old man, and
told him and several others, by means of Tupia, that we were come to set
up a mark upon the island, in order to show to any other ship which
should happen to come thither, that we had been there before. To this
they readily consented, and promised that they never would pull it down:
I then gave something to every one present; and to the old man I gave a
silver threepence, dated 1736, and some spike nails, with the king's
broad arrow cut deep upon them; things which I thought most likely to
remain long among them: I then took the post to the highest part of the
island, and after fixing it firmly in the ground, I hoisted upon it the
union-flag, and honoured this inlet with the name of _Queen Charlotte's
Sound_, at the same time taking formal possession of this and the
adjacent country, in the name and for the use of his majesty King George
the Third. We then drank a bottle of wine to her majesty's health, and
gave the bottle to the old man who had attended us up the hill, and who
was mightily delighted with his present.

While the post was setting up, we enquired of the old man concerning the
passage into the eastern sea, the existence of which he confirmed; and
then asked him about the land to the S.W. of the streight, where we were
then situated: This la