Two of the youngest and most attractive of these ladies advanced to within twenty yards, and received with much apparent delight, and a great deal of capering and dancing about on the sand, some strips of a gaudy handkerchief conveyed to them by a lad decorated with streamers of pandanus leaf at the elbows and wrists--evidently the Adonis of the party.

Some of the men had formerly been off to the ship, and one or two carried axes of the usual form, but headed with pieces of our iron hoop, neatly ground to a fine edge.

A few coconuts were given us for a knife or two, and we saw their mode of climbing for them, which one man did with the agility of a monkey, ascending first by a few notches, made years ago, afterwards by clasping the trunk with his arms, arching his body with the feet against the tree, and then walking up precisely in the mode of the Torres Strait Islanders.
Like these last people too, they open the nut with a sharp stick, and use a shell (a piece of mother-of-pearl oyster) for scraping out the pulp.
After a stay of half an hour we returned to the boat leaving the natives in good humour.

Our search for a safe anchorage for the ship was unsuccessful, so we returned on board.
July 3rd.
After the good understanding which appeared to have been established yesterday, I was rather surprised at observing the suspicious manner in which we were received today by the people on Brierly Island.

In two boats we went round to a small sandy point on the northern side of the island where seven or eight canoes were hauled up on the beach, but some time elapsed before any of the natives came close up--even to a single unarmed man of our party who waded ashore--the others remaining in the boats--although tempted by the display of pieces of iron hoop and strips of calico.