On 4 April, 1769, land was sighted and was discovered to be an island of an oval form, with a lagoon in the middle, which occupied much the larger part of it. The border of land circumscribing the lagoon was in many places low and narrow, consisting chiefly of a reef or beach of rocks; in other words, it was one of the coralline atolls described on p. 21, and as usual possessed coconut palms. It was inhabited by tall, copper-coloured natives, with long, black hair, whose heads seemed to be remarkably large, probably because of some cap or headdress. Eleven of them walked along the beach abreast of the ship, with poles or pikes in their hands which reached twice as high as themselves. As they so walked they were without clothing; but after the ship had drawn off from the island it was seen that they covered themselves with some light-coloured material. To Cook and his mariners, who for a long time had seen nothing but water and sky, except the cold hills of Tierra del Fuego, these coconut groves of Lagoon Island in tropical latitudes seemed a terrestrial paradise. The following day they passed another atoll, shaped exactly like a bow, the arc and cord being land, and the space between them water, that part answering to the arc of the bow being about 200 yards wide, 12 or more miles long, and fairly well covered with trees, while the straight, low beach answering to the bowstring was a long strip of coral rocks, through which there were openings connecting the lagoon with the sea. This island, like similar ones which they sailed by in the succeeding days, was inhabited by Polynesians of the usual type, brown-skinned, naked, tall, well-made, and with abundance of black hair; but in some cases this bushed out from the head, showing that the people were not without some Melanesian blood. They seemed to be armed with wooden weapons, one of them a slender pole with a knob at the end, and another a paddle, which might be used for striking or stabbing or for navigating a canoe. The canoes these people had possessed sails. [Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK'S ARRIVAL AT TAHITI (1769)]