w ' geftures to prevent their landing, I therefore fired a nine
'---- I— 1 pound fhot from the fliip over their heads, upon which they
•Saturday .8. * * . 1 . , . , . ’ ran into the woods with great precipitation. At ten o’clock
the boats returned, but could get no foundings clofe in with
the furf, which broke very high upon the fhore. The
middle o f this clufter o f iflands lies in latitude 140 10 'S.,
longitude 1440 52' W .; the variation o f the compafs was here
4° 30' E.
At half an hour after ten, we bore away and made fail to
the weftward, finding it impoflible to procure at thefe iflands
any refrefhment for our fick, whofe fituation was becoming
more deplorable every hour, and I therefore called them the
Islands of Disa p po in tm en t .
C H A P .
C H A P . I X .
The Difcoverj of King George's Iflands, with a Defcrip-
tion of them, and an Account of feveral -Incidents
that happened there.
AT ha lf an hour after five o'clock in the afternoon of 1765.
the 9th, we faw land again, bearing W. S. W. at the ■ J_n_. ?
diftance o f fix or feven leagues; and at feven we brought to s“nday9'
for the night. In the morning, being within three miles Monday,°.
o f the fhore, we difcovered it to be a long low ifland, with a
white beach, of a pleafant appearance, full of cocoa-nut and
other trees, and furrounded with a rock o f red coral. We
flood along the north eafl fide o f it, within ha lf a mile of
the fhore; and the favages, as foon as they faw us, made
great fires, as we fuppofed, to alarm the diflant inhabitants
o f the ifland, and ran along the beach, abreaft o f the fhip,
in great numbers, armed in the fame manner as the natives
o f the Iflands of Difappointment. Over the land on this fide
o f the ifland we could fee a large lake of fait water, or lagoon,
which appeared to be two or three leagues wide, and
to reach within a fmall diftance o f the oppofite fhore. Into
this lagoon we faw a fmall inlet about a league from the
fouth weft point, off which we brought to. At this place
the natives have built a little town, under the fhade o f a
fine grove o f cocoa-nut trees. I immediately fent off the
boats, with an officer in each, to found; but they could find
no anchorage, the fhore being every where as fteep as a
wall, except at the very mouth o f the inlet, which was
V ol. I. O fcarcely