safe.  The captain, however, ordered four shot to be fired over them, but two of the balls, having fallen close to a tree where a number of them were sitting, they were so struck with terror and consternation, that, in less than two minutes, not a creature was to be seen.  The coast being cleared, the boats were manned and armed, and all the carpenters with their axes were sent on shore, with directions to destroy every canoe they could find; and we are told this service was effectually performed, and that more than fifty canoes, many of which were sixty feet long, and three broad, and lashed together, were cut to pieces.

This act of severity must have been cruelly felt by these poor people, who, without iron or any kind of tools, but such as stones, shells, teeth, and bones supplied them with, must have spent months and probably years in the construction of one of these extraordinary double boats.

Such was the inauspicious commencement of our acquaintance with the natives of Otaheite.  Their determined hostility and perseverance in an unequal combat could only have arisen from one of two motives—­either from an opinion that a ship of such magnitude, as they had never before beheld, could only be come to their coast to take their country from them; or an irresistible temptation to endeavour, at all hazards, to possess themselves of so valuable a prize.  Be that as it may, the dread inspired by the effects of the cannon, and perhaps a conviction of the truth of what had been explained to them, that the ’strangers wanted only provisions and water,’ had the effect of allaying all jealousy; for from the day of the last action, the most friendly and uninterrupted intercourse was established, and continued to the day of the Dolphin’s departure; and provisions of all kinds, hogs, dogs, fruit, and vegetables, were supplied in the greatest abundance, in exchange for pieces of iron, nails, and trinkets.

As a proof of the readiness of these simple people to forgive injuries, a poor woman, accompanied by a young man bearing a branch of the plantain tree, and another man with two hogs, approached the gunner, whom Captain Wallis had appointed to regulate the market, and looking round on the strangers with great attention, fixing her eyes sometimes on one and sometimes on another, at length burst into tears.  It appeared that her husband and three of her sons had been killed in the attack on the ship.  While this was under explanation, the poor creature was so affected as to require the support of the two young men, who from their weeping were probably two more of her sons.  When somewhat composed, she ordered the two hogs to be delivered to the gunner, and gave him her hand in token of friendship, but would accept nothing in return.