ay they
were again seen, and fired upon by the boat's crew of the Dick.

All these events gave me much concern, not only because the natives may
be induced to attack and take revenge upon strangers who may subsequently
pass this way, but also because they must have imbibed a very poor idea
of the effect of our arms, when so many muskets were fired without doing
them any mischief: and, but for the sake of humanity, I could almost have
wished that one had been killed.

The day after we arrived here, a boat from the San Antonio conveyed Mr.
Montgomery and Mr. Cunningham to Clack's Island. The reef abounded with
shells, of which they brought back a large collection, but not in any
great variety; an indifferent cypraea was the most common; but there were
also some volutae and other shells, besides trepang and asteriae, in
abundance. Mr. Cunningham observed a singularly curious cavern upon the
rock, of which he gave me a description in the following account of the
island:

"The south and south-eastern extremes of Clack's Island presented a
steep, rocky bluff, thinly covered with small trees. I ascended the steep
head, which rose to an elevation of a hundred and eighty feet above the
sea. I found simply the plants of the main, namely, Mimusops parvifolia,
Br.; Hoya nivea, Cunningham manuscript; Acacia plectocarpa, Cunningham
manuscript; Chionanthus axillaris, Br.; Notelaea punctata, Br.; some
alyxiae, and the small orange-fruited ficus, which grew in the thickets,
and, by insinuating its roots in the interstices of the rocks, clothed a
great portion of the inaccessible front of the island.

"The remarkable structure of the geological feature of this islet led me
to examine the south-east part, which was the most exposed to the
weather, and where the disposition of the strata was of course more
plainly developed. The base is a coarse, granular, siliceous sandstone,
in which large pebbles of quartz and jasper are embedded: this stratum
continues for sixteen to twenty feet above the water: for the next ten
feet there is a horizontal stratum of black schistose rock, which was of
so soft a consistence, that the weather had excavated several tiers of
galleries; upon the roof and sides of which some curious drawings were
observed, which deserve to be particularly described: they were executed
upon a ground of red ochre (rubbed on the black schistus) and were
delineated by dots of a white argillaceous earth, which had been worked