fowl. Turtle tracks were observed
on most of the beaches, but more especially on the smaller islands, where
remains of turtle feasts were generally found.

There were traces of Indians on all the islands, both large and small,
but the latter are visited only at times; these people seemed to be
equally desirous of avoiding communication with strangers, as those of
Wellesley's Islands, for we saw them only once at a distance, from the
ship. Two canoes found on the shore of North Island were formed of slips
of bark, like planks, sewed together, the edge of one slip overlaying
another, as in our clincher-built boats; their breadth was about two
feet, but they were too much broken for the length to be known. I cannot
be certain that these canoes were the fabrication of the natives, for
there were some things near them which appertained, without doubt, to
another people, and their construction was much superior to that on any
part of Terra Australis hitherto discovered; but their substance of bark
spoke in the affirmative. The same degree of doubt was attached to a
small monument found on the same island. Under a shed of bark were set up
two cylindrical pieces of stone, about eighteen inches long; which seemed
to have been taken from the shore, where they had been made smooth from
rolling in the surf, and formed into a shape something like a nine pin.
Round each of them were drawn two black circles, one towards each end;
and between them were four oval black patches, at equal distances round
the stone, made apparently with charcoal. The spaces between the oval
marks were covered with white down and feathers, stuck on with the yolk
of a turtle's egg, as I judged by the gluten and by the shell lying near
the place. Of the intention in setting up these stones under a shed, no
person could form a reasonable conjecture; the first idea was, that it
had some relation to the dead, and we dug underneath to satisfy our
curiosity; but nothing was found. This simple monument is represented in
the annexed plate, with two of the ducks near it: the land in the back
ground is Vanderlin's Island.

Indications of some foreign people having visited this group were almost
as numerous, and as widely extended as those left by the natives. Besides
pieces of earthen jars and trees cut with axes, we found remnants of
bamboo lattice work, palm leaves sewed with cotton thread into the form
of such hats as are worn by the Chinese, and the remains of blu