of land, and the useful though not numerous domestic arts of cookery, and the making of nets and cloth, &c.—­not to mention their music and dancing.  In consequence of this progress, they are excited by the love of property to the display of courage as necessary for its preservation, and, it seems, often required against rival or more needy tribes.  But their advancement has not been so great as to destroy or counteract the treacherousness of disposition so common to savages, whose minds are too intent on objects of desire or resentment to allow place for reflection on the propriety or impropriety of the means of attaining them, and whose whole morality, in short, consists of appetites and indulgence.  Hence, on the one hand, a magnanimity which avows and boasts of its enmity, and on the other, a cunning which seeks to gratify that feeling by artifices calculated to put those who are the objects of it, off their guard against its violence.  They would be generous in their hate as well as in their love; but the evil propensities of their lower life, check the virtues of the higher.  Thus they lose the merit of their valour by the meanness of their deceit.  Their inconsistency renders them more formidable than either.—­E.]

In the morning, at day-break, they prepared to effect by force what they had in vain attempted by stealth and artifice:  No less than twelve canoes came against us, with about a hundred and fifty men, all armed with pikes, lances, and stones.  As they could do nothing till they came very near the ship, Tupia was ordered to expostulate with them, and, if possible, divert them from their purpose:  During the conversation they appeared to be sometimes friendly and sometimes otherwise; at length, however, they began to trade, and we offered to purchase their weapons, which some of them consented to sell:  They sold two very fairly, but having received what had been agreed upon for the purchase of a third, they refused to send it up, but offered it for a second price; a second was sent down, but the weapon was still detained, and a demand made of a third; this being refused with some expressions of displeasure and resentment, the offender, with many ludicrous tokens of contempt and defiance, paddled his canoe off a few yards from the ship.  As I intended to continue in this place five or six days, in order to make an observation of the transit of Mercury, it was absolutely necessary, in order to prevent future mischief, to shew these people that we were not to be treated ill with impunity; some small shot were therefore fired at the thief, and a musquet-ball through the bottom of his boat:  Upon this it was paddled to about a hundred yards distance, and to our great surprise the people in the other canoes took not the least notice of their wounded companion, though he bled very much, but returned to the ship, and continued to trade with the most perfect indifference and unconcern.  They sold us many more of their weapons without making any other