The natives appeared
stout, and were in height from five feet eight to six feet two inches;
their colour dark, and their language harsh and disagreeable. The weapons
which were seen were spears, lances made of a hard black wood, and clubs
about four feet in length. They lived in huts resembling a hay-cock, with
a pole driven through the middle, formed of long grass and the leaves of
the cocoa tree. These huts might contain six or eight persons each, and
were inclosed with a fence of bamboo. In a corner of some of the huts
which they entered, they perceived a wooden image, intended to resemble a
man; in others the figure of a bird, very rudely carved, daubed with red,
and curiously decorated with the feathers of the emu. Over these images
were suspended from the roof several strings of human hands, each string
having five or six hands on it. In some they found small piles of human
skulls; and in one, in which there was a much larger pile of skulls than
in any other that they had visited, they observed some gum burning before
a wooden image.
This island was supposed to be about eight miles in length, five in
breadth, and fifteen in circumference; a coral reef seemed to guard it
from all approach, except on the north-west part which formed a bay,
where the ship anchored in thirteen fathoms water.
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