ristina. The ship, after being nearly driven on the rocks, brought up
in port in the last-mentioned island. Directly afterwards, thirty or
forty natives came off in ten or twelve canoes, in the bow of each of
which a heap of stones was observed, while all the men had slings
fastened to their hands. It required some address to get them
alongside, but at last a hatchet and some spike-nails induced the people
in one canoe to venture under the quarter-galley. The rest then
followed, exchanging bread-fruit and fish for small nails. At sunset
they all returned to the shore. The next morning the natives returned
in greater numbers, with plantains, bread-fruit, and a pig, but soon
showed themselves ready to cheat, and to be expert thieves. Captain
Cook was going into the boat to look for a convenient place to moor the
ship, when, seeing too many natives on board, he warned one of the
officers on deck, saying that something would be stolen. Just then he
was told that an iron stanchion had been carried off from the opposite
gangway. He therefore ordered the officer to fire over the canoe till
he could get round in the boat, but to be careful not to kill any one.
But the noise made by the natives prevented this last warning from being
heard, and at the third shot the unhappy thief was killed. Two other
natives who were in the canoe leaped overboard, but soon got in again,
and threw away the stanchion. One of them sat baling the blood and
water out of the canoe, uttering a kind of hysteric laugh, while the
other, a youth of fifteen, looked at the dead body with a serious and
dejected countenance. The latter was found to be the son of the man who
had been killed. Immediately on this, the natives took to flight, but
on being followed by the captain into the bay the people in one canoe
were persuaded to come alongside the boat, and to receive some nails.
This restored their confidence in some degree, but soon afterwards they
attempted to carry off the buoy of the kedge anchor. A musket-shot on
this was fired at them, but it fell short, and they took no notice of
it; but a second bullet passing over them, they immediately let go the
buoy and made for the shore.

The natives undoubtedly were bold fellows, for, notwithstanding the
effects of the firearms which they had witnessed, before long some more
ventured off. One of them appeared to be a person of consequence. His
dress was similar to that of the chiefs of Otaheite.