'773- hammocks every day, and frequently fmoaking the fhip
A ugust .
with gunpowder and vinegar.
In the afternoon we faw an ifland right a-head, confiding
of feveral clumps of trees, united by one reef, and from
its fituation we judged it was the fame which Captain Cook,
named Chain Ifland in his former voyage*. To prevent
Idling our time by bringing the floops to-at night, we
hoifted a boat out, and fent it to fail ahead of our vellels,
with a light, and to make fignals in cafe of danger. The
South Sea between the tropics contains many low iflands,
Angularly conftrudted, which are level with the fea in moft
places, and at the utmoft a yard or two above it. They
have frequently a circular form, including a lagoon or
bafon of fea-water in their centre, and the depth of the
fea all round them is unfathomable, the rocks riling perpendicularly
from the bottom. Their productions mull
be few, and cocoa nut-trees are probably the moft ufeful
which they contain ; but notwithftanding this circumftance
and their fmall fize, many of them are inhabited. The
queftion how fuch little fpots came to be peopled is not
eafily to be anfwered ; but it is not eafier to determine how
the higher iflands in the South Sea have acquired their inhabitants.
Commodore (now Admiral) Byron, and Captain
Wallis, who fent Tome of their people on Ihore upon thefe
low iflands,' found their inhabitants fhy and jealous of
Grangers $
fhangers.; a difpofition which is perhaps owing to the dif-
ficuky of preferving their exiftence from the feanty provi-
lions on their narrow circle, and which may be heightened
by the confeioufnefs that their fmall numbers render
them liable to oppreffion. The language of thefe people,
and their cuftoms, are therefore Hill unknown, and thefe
are the only circumftanees from which the origin of nations,
who have no records among them, can be traced.
. Early on. the i^thof Auguftwe faw a high peak with a
flattilh fummit, firft difcovered by Captain Wallis, who
called it Ofnabruck Ifland, and afterwards by M. de Bougainville,
in whofe chart it has the names of Prc de la
Boudeufe, or le Boudoir. The mountain appeared of a
confiderable height, and its top was broken of excavated
perfedliy like the crater of a volcano, which feemed evidently
to have exifted here. The ifland was nearly of a
circular. form, and the mountain rofe fteep to a conical
flrape from all parts of the fea-ftiore, there being but little
level land round its foot. The whole mountain was green,
and the bottom or low land was covered with trees. While
we eagerly feafted our eyes with this pleafing profped, one
of our officers, who had formerly been fent clofe in
Ihore there by Captain Wallis, told us that the trees were of
the kind which bear the bread-fruit, fo much extolled in
the voyages of Anfon, Byron, Wallis, and Cook. He ac-
quainted us at the fame time, that the natives were of the
Vol. I. K k fame