s was not in a prosperous condition: most of the melons and
cucumbers were destroyed by insects; and the soil being sandy was not
favourable to the other seeds. I therefore chose another spot of ground
farther from the seaside and had an assortment of seeds sown.

December. Monday 1.

In the night the rudder of one of the boats was stolen from the tents. On
landing in the morning neither Tinah nor any of his family came near me,
being, I was informed, afraid of my displeasure. As the loss was not
great I immediately sent to assure them that I had no anger except
against the person who committed the theft. In consequence of this
message Tinah and some of the other chiefs came to the tents and promised
that they would exert themselves to discover the thief and get the rudder
restored. This was the first theft of any consequence that had been
committed since the tents were on shore, and my suspicions fell chiefly
on the people who were here from some of the other islands. Tinah had
just begun to build a house for himself and I promised that our
carpenters should assist him. Whydooah, the youngest brother of Tinah,
had lately been one of my constant visitors and seemed to have left off
his former custom of getting drunk with the Ava. He was esteemed one of
their best warriors; and I was told that in the quarrel with the people
of Eimeo he killed Maheine the chief of that island.

Friday 5.

The weather for some time past had been very unsettled. This afternoon
the wind blew fresh from the north-west, which occasioned the sea to
break very high across the Dolphin bank; and in the night such a heavy
broken sea came into the bay that we were obliged to batten all the
hatchways down, and to keep everybody upon deck all night though the rain
came down in torrents. The ship rolled in a most violent manner.

Saturday 6.

In the morning the wind increasing and, there being no possibility of
putting to sea, we struck yards and topmasts and trusted to our anchors.
The river swelled so much with the rain that the point of land on which
the tents stood became an island; and to preserve the breadfruit plants
from being endangered the people were obliged to cut a passage for the
river through a part of the beach at a distance from the tents. The sea
broke very high on the beach; nevertheless a canoe put off and to my
surprise Tinah, his wife, and Moannah made their way good through the
surf and came on board to see me. There was no