a peep at the strangers. Two of the youngest and most
attractive of these ladies advanced to within twenty yards, and received
with much apparent delight, and a great deal of capering and dancing
about on the sand, some strips of a gaudy handkerchief conveyed to them
by a lad decorated with streamers of pandanus leaf at the elbows and
wrists--evidently the Adonis of the party. Some of the men had formerly
been off to the ship, and one or two carried axes of the usual form, but
headed with pieces of our iron hoop, neatly ground to a fine edge. A few
coconuts were given us for a knife or two, and we saw their mode of
climbing for them, which one man did with the agility of a monkey,
ascending first by a few notches, made years ago, afterwards by clasping
the trunk with his arms, arching his body with the feet against the tree,
and then walking up precisely in the mode of the Torres Strait Islanders.
Like these last people too, they open the nut with a sharp stick, and use
a shell (a piece of mother-of-pearl oyster) for scraping out the pulp.
After a stay of half an hour we returned to the boat leaving the natives
in good humour. Our search for a safe anchorage for the ship was
unsuccessful, so we returned on board.

July 3rd.

After the good understanding which appeared to have been established
yesterday, I was rather surprised at observing the suspicious manner in
which we were received today by the people on Brierly Island. In two
boats we went round to a small sandy point on the northern side of the
island where seven or eight canoes were hauled up on the beach, but some
time elapsed before any of the natives came close up--even to a single
unarmed man of our party who waded ashore--the others remaining in the
boats--although tempted by the display of pieces of iron hoop and strips
of calico. One of the natives, carrying a wooden sword, and apparently a
leading man among them, made some signs and used gesticulations
expressive of sleep or death with reference to a part of Joannet Island
which he repeatedly pointed to. This we could not understand.* After a
certain degree of confidence had been restored, five or six of us
remained on shore, and great harmony appeared to prevail throughout the
combined party. In one place the sergeant of marines was seated on the
sand with a ring of people round him whom he was drilling into the mode
of singing a Port Essington aboriginal song, occasionally rising to vary
his lesson wi