1773.
April.
the idea of amity is naturally and necessarily referred. Our boat being nearest to these natives, Captain Cook desired the officer in it to land, and accept their proferred friendship, whilst he meant to take the advantage of the tide to get as high up in the river as possible. Whether the officer did not understand Captain Cook's meaning, or whether he was too deeply engaged with duck shooting, we did not land; and the poor people, to all appearance apprehensive of the worst consequences, from a set of men who rejected their proposals of peace, fled into the woods with the utmost precipitation. The Captain in the mean while rowed about half a mile higher, where his boat was stopped by the violence of the stream, and by several huge stones which lay across the bed of the river, and redoubled the rapidity of the water. Here, however, he found a new species of ducks, the fifth we had observed in Dusky Bay. Its size was something less than that of a teal, the colour of a shining greenish black above, and a dark sooty grey below; it had a purple cast on the head, a lead-coloured bill and feet, a golden eye, and a white bar in the lesser quill feathers. On Captain Cook's return to us, we perceived two men in the woods along the bank opposite to that where we had seen the friendly family. The captain endeavoured to form an acquaintance with them, but when the boat came close along shore, they always retired into the woods, which were so thick, that theynot
