*765- Our people, in rummaging fome o f the huts, found the
<— v—_; carved head o f a rudder, which had manifeftly belonged to
Tuefday a Dutch longboat, and was very old and worm-eaten. They
found alfo a piece o f ham.mered-iron, a piece of brafs, and
fome fmall iron tools, which the ancellors o f the prefent inhabitants
of this place probably obtained from the Dutch
fhip to which the long-boat had belonged, all which I
brought away with me. Whether thefe people found means
to'cut off the fhip, or whether fhe'was loft upon the ifland
or after fh e le ftit , cannot be known; but there is reafon to
believe that fhe never returned to Europe, becaufe no account
of her voyage, or Of any difcoveries that fhe made, is
extant. If the fhip failed from this place in fafety, it Is not
perhaps eafy to account for her leaving the rudder of her
longboat behind her: and i f fhe was cut off by the natives
there muft be much more confiderable remains of her in the
ifland, ëfpecially o f h er iron-work, upon which all Indian nations,
who have no metal, fet the higheft value ; we had no
opportunities however to examine this matter farthêf. The
hammered-iron, brafs, and iron tools, I brought away with
m e ; but we found a tool exaétly in the form o f a carpenter’s
adze, the blade of which was a pearl oyfter-fhell; pof-
fibly this might have been made in imitation .of an adze
.which had belonged to the carpenter o f the Dutch fhip, for
- among the tools that 1 brought away there was one which
feemed to be the remains o f fuch an implement, though it
was worn away almoft to nothing.
Glofe to the houfes.of thefe people, we faw buildings of
another kind, which appeared to be burying-places, and
from which we judged that they had great veneration for
their dead. They weré fituated under lofty trees, that gave
a thick fhade; the fides and tops were o f ftone ; and in their
9 figure
figure they fomewhat refembled the fquare tombs, with a J765-
flat top, which are always to be found in our country church- >--- J—. ■>
yards. Near thefe buildings we found many neat boxes fu ll Tuefday
o f human bones, and upon the branches of the trees which
fhaded them, hung a great number of the heads and bones
o f turtle, and a variety of fifh, inclofed in a kind of bafket-
work o f reeds: fome of the fifh we took down, and found
that nothing remained’but the fkin and the teeth ; the bones
and entrails feemed to have been extracted, and the mufcular
flefh dried away.
We fent off feveraf boat-loads of cocoa-nuts, and a great
quantity of fcurvy-grafs, with which the ifland is covered;
refrefhments which were o f infinite fervice to us, as by this
time I believe there' was not. a man among us wholly untouched
by the feurvyt-
The .frefh: water here is very good, bu r it is fcarce'; the
wells which fupply the natives are fo fmall, that when two
or three cocoa nut fhells have been filled- from; them, they
are dry fora few minutes ; but as they prefently fill again,
i f a, little pains..we-re taken to enlarge them,.they-would
abundantly-fupply any fhip with water—
We faw no venomous creature here; but the flies were an
intolerable torment; they covered us from head to foot, and
filled'not only the boat, but the fh’ips. We faw great numbers
o f parrots and parroquets, and feveral other birds which
were altogether unknown to'us; we faw alfo a beautiful
kind o f dove, fo tame that fome of them frequently came.
clofe to us, and even followed us into the Indian huts.-
All this day the natives kept themfelves clofely concealed;
and did not even-make a fmoke upon any part o f the iflands
as far as we could feep ro bably , fearing that a fmoke might
difcover