ad fled to avoid punishment. Being
unwilling to lose them, the commodore sent the author of this
narrative with a detachment of soldiers to bring them away, but he was
unable to succeed.

These islands are situated between the latitudes of 15 deg. and 16 deg. S.
about twelve leagues west from Carlshoff,[10] each of them appearing
to be four or five leagues in compass. That on which the African
was shipwrecked was named _Mischievous Island_, the two next it
the _Brothers_, and the fourth the _Sister_ All four islands were
beautifully verdant, and abounded in fine tall trees, especially
cocoas; and the crews found material benefit while here by refreshing
themselves on the vegetable productions of these islands, by which
many of them were surprisingly recovered from the scurvy. The Dutch
found here vast quantities of muscles, cockles, mother-of-pearls,
and pearl-oysters, which gave reason to expect that a valuable pearl
fishery might have been established here. These islands are extremely
low, so that some parts of them must be frequently overflowed; but the
inhabitants have plenty of stout canoes, as also stout barks provided
with sails and cables; and the Dutch found several pieces of rope on
the shore, that seemed made of hemp. The natives were of extraordinary
size, all their bodies being painted [or _tatooed_] with many colours,
and had mostly long black hair, though some had brown hair even
inclined towards red. They were armed with pikes or lances eighteen or
twenty feet long, and kept in bodies of fifty or an hundred together,
endeavouring to entice the Dutch to follow them into the interior, as
if to draw them into an ambuscade, on purpose to be revenged for the
loss they had sustained by the firing on the night of the shipwreck.

[Footnote 10: Pernicious islands, almost certainly the Mischievous
islands of the text, are placed in lat. 16 deg. 5' S. and long. 148 deg. 50'
W. about 20 leagues W. by S. from Carlshoff by Arrowsmith.--E.]

SECTION V.

_Continuation of the Voyage after the Loss of the African, to the
Arrival of Roggewein at New Britain._

The next morning after leaving Mischievous island, they saw a new
island eight leagues to the west, to which they gave the name of
_Aurora_ island, because observed first at break of day. At this time
the Tienhoven was so near, that if the sun had risen half an hour
later, she must have shared the same fate with the African, as she was
within cannon-shot of