Poulaho, and others, having informed me, that there was some excellent water on Onevy, a little island, which lies about a league off the mouth of the inlet, and on the north side of the eastern channel, we landed there, in order to taste it.  But I found it to be as brackish as most that we had met with.  This island is quite in a natural state, being only frequented as a fishing place, and has nearly the same productions as Palmerston’s Island, with some etoa trees.  After leaving Onevy, where we dined, in our way to the ship, we took a view of a curious coral rock, which seems to have been thrown upon the reef where it stands.  It is elevated about ten or twelve feet above the surface of the sea that surrounds it.  The base it rests upon, is not above one-third of the circumference of its projecting summit, which I judged to be about one hundred feet, and is covered with etoa and pandanus trees.

When we got on board the ship, I found that every thing had been quiet during my absence, not a theft having been committed, of which Feenou, and Futtafaihe, the king’s brother, who had undertaken the management of his countrymen, boasted not a little.  This shews what power the chiefs have, when they have the will to execute it; which we were seldom to expect, since, whatever was stolen from us, generally, if not always, was conveyed to them.

The good conduct of the natives was of short duration; for, the next day, six or eight of them assaulted some of our people, who were sawing planks.  They were fired upon by the sentry, and one was supposed to be wounded, and three others taken.  These I kept confined till night, and did not dismiss them without punishment.  After this, they behaved with a little more circumspection, and gave us much less trouble.  This change of behaviour was certainly occasioned by the man being wounded; for, before, they had only been told of the effect of fire-arms, but now they had felt it.  The repeated insolence of the natives, had induced me to order the musquets of the sentries, to be loaded with small shot, and to authorise them to fire on particular occasions.  I took it for granted, therefore, that this man had only been wounded with small shot.  But Mr King and Mr Anderson, in an excursion into the country, met with him, and found indubitable marks of his having been wounded, but not dangerously, with a musquet ball.  I never could find out how this musquet happened to be charged with ball; and there were people enough ready to swear, that its contents were only small shot.

Mr Anderson’s account of the excursion just mentioned, will fill up an interval of two days, during which nothing of note happened at the ships:  “Mr King and I went, on the 30th, along with Futtafaihe, as visitors to his house, which is at Mooa, very near that of his brother Poulaho.  A short time after we arrived, a pretty large hog was killed; which is done by repeated strokes on the head.