On the 17th, about ten o’clock, I went ashore, and found in the crowd old Geogy and his son, who soon made me understand that they wanted to dine with me; and accordingly I brought them and two more on board.  They all called them Areekees (or kings); but I doubt if any of them had the least pretensions to that title over the whole island.  It had been remarked, that one of these kings had not authority enough to order one of the people up into a cocoa-nut tree, to bring him down some nuts.  Although he spoke to several, he was at last obliged to go himself, and, by way of revenge, as it was thought, left not a nut on the tree, taking what he wanted himself, and giving the rest to some of our people.

When I got them on board, I went with them all over the ship, which they viewed with uncommon surprise and attention.  We happened to have for their entertainment a kind of pie or pudding made of plantains, and some sort of greens which we had got from one of the natives.  On this and on yams they made a hearty dinner; for, as to the salt beef and pork, they would hardly taste them.  In the afternoon, having made each of them a present of a hatchet, a spike-nail, and some medals, I conducted them ashore.

Mr Forster and I then went over to the other side of the harbour, and, having tried, with Fahrenheit’s thermometer, the head of one of the hot springs, we found that the mercury rose to 191 deg..  At this time the tide was up within two or three feet of the spring, so that we judged, it might, in some degree, be cooled by it.  We were mistaken however, for on repeating the experiment next morning, when the tide was out, the mercury rose no higher than 187 deg.; but, at another spring, where the water bubbled out of the sand from under the rock at the S.W. corner of the harbour, the mercury in the same thermometer rose to 202 deg.-1/2, which is but little colder than boiling water.  The hot places before mentioned are from about three to four hundred feet perpendicular above these springs, and on the slope of the same ridge with the volcano; that is, there are no vallies between them, but such as are formed in the ridge itself; nor is the volcano on the highest part of the ridge, but on the S.E. side of it.  This is, I have been told, contrary to the general opinion of philosophers, who say that volcanos must be on the summits of the highest hills.  So far is this from being the case on this island, that some of its hills are more than double the height of that on which the volcano is, and close to it.  To these remarks I must add, that, in wet or moist weather, the volcano was most violent.  There seems to be room for some philosophical reasoning on these phenomena of nature; but not having any talent that way, I must content myself with stating facts as I found them, and leave the causes to men of more abilities.[7]