in, and all the islands in its neighbourhood,
is composed of very high land, many of the mountains hiding their
heads in the clouds. The sea coasts are however both pleasant and
fertile, the low lands being cloathed in perpetual verdure, and the
hills covered with a variety of trees, mostly bearing fruit. It is
in lat. between 4 deg.and 7 deg. S.[1] and both in regard to situation and
appearance, no country can promise better than this. After some
consultation, it was resolved to go on shore here at all events,
though now so much reduced by the long-continued sickness, that they
could hardly muster a sufficient number of men from both ships to man
a boat, and leave men enough, in case they were cut off, to navigate
one ship home, supposing them even to sacrifice one of the ships. Yet
such was the ardent desire of all to get on shore, and so urgent was
the necessity for that measure, that it appeared indispensable
to venture on landing, let the consequences be what they might.
Accordingly, our author was ordered into the boat, with as many men
as could be spared, with orders to get on shore at any rate, by fair
means if possible, and with the consent of the inhabitants, for whom
he carried a great number of baubles to distribute among them as
presents. If, however, these had no effect, he was then to use force,
as the circumstances to which they were reduced made it as eligible to
die by the hands of barbarians as to perish gradually by disease and
famine.

[Footnote 1: No account is given of this voyage from Bowman's islands,
perhaps the Fee-jees, as already mentioned, to New Britain, neither
indeed is it any way expressed on what part of New Britain they had
now arrived. They probably steered a course N.W. or N.W. by W. from
the Fee-jees, and fell in with the N.E. part of New Britain, now known
to be a separate island, and called New Ireland; and by the lower
latitude mentioned, in the text, they appear to come first to the
eastern part of New Ireland; but it is impossible to say whether they
went to the N. or S. of Solomon's island.--E.]

The nearer they drew towards the coast, the more they were delighted
with its appearance, as giving them a nearer prospect of the
wished-for refreshments. The inhabitants came down in multitudes to
the coast, but in such guise as did not by any means increase their
satisfaction, as they were all armed with bows and arrows and slings,
and demonstrated sufficiently by their gestures