The old man was lifted out of the boat by several of his people, and we were amazed to find, when they set him down, that he was in tears, and looking altogether very unhappy. In a few minutes a crowd, consisting of more than a hundred people, assembled round us, and we began to think we should pay dearly for our curiosity. But the poor old man had no thoughts of vengeance, and was no better pleased with the crowd than we were; for turning to his soldiers, he desired them to disperse the mob, which they did in a moment by pelting them with great stones. The Chief now began crying violently, and turning towards the village walked away, leaning his head on the shoulder of one of his people. As he went along, he not only sobbed and wept, but every now and then bellowed aloud. We had been nowise prepared for such a scene, and were extremely sorry for having pushed matters to this extremity. It had never occurred to us that the old Chief's head was really in danger; and even now we could not satisfy ourselves whether he was sincere, or merely acting in order to prevail on us to retire. The perfect tranquillity, nay even cheerfulness of the Courtier, who staid with us all this time, puzzled us extremely: nor could we account for the indifference of the other attendants, who looked on with as much composure as if such scenes were every day occurrences. But at all events, it was necessary before proceeding any further, that the old man should be pacified; and in order to effect this, we sat down on the beach, upon which he turned about and came crying back again. He seated himself by us, and waited very patiently whilst we remonstrated on the unreasonableness of his conduct, and contrasted the reception he had met with from us, with his present unaccountable behaviour. This was expressed by a dumb show acting of all that had taken place since we came to anchor in the bay; and these signs we thought might be intelligible to the Chief, because they were so to all of us, although no words were used. The signs used by different nations, however, are often dissimilar when the same thing is to be expressed: and it happened frequently with us that all attempts at explanation failed, on both sides, though the signs used appeared to be understood by all the people of the same nation with the person making the signs. The old man made a long speech in reply; in the course which the beheading sign was frequently repeated. It is curious that he invariably held his hands towards his throat after he had gone through this motion, and appeared to wash his hands in his blood: probably he did this in imitation of some ceremony used at executions.