In the course of this journey taken by the party from the _Resolution_ the natives frequently came up with roasted potatoes, sugar cane, and supplies of water. They distributed these supplies of food and drink with great punctiliousness, being careful that those in the rear should be as well served as those in front of the expedition. Yet all the time they were taking trouble to minister to the wants of the white men they endeavoured to steal from them by snatching at their bags or any loose gear which they could easily detach from their persons; so much so that at last it was necessary to fire a musket loaded with small shot, which did not in the least interrupt the otherwise friendly relations. On the whole the natives of Easter Island (Rapanui, Hwaihu, and Teapai, as it was sometimes called) were living in a somewhat miserable condition when revisited by Cook, as though they had very much degenerated. Their food supply was poor, not even fish being abundant on the coasts. They had a few fowls and rats, and lived chiefly on sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkins or gourds, bananas, and sugar cane. The speciality of the island was the sweet potato, which Cook thought the best he had ever tasted. It seemed to Cook as though there were not more than 700 natives left on this island (probably there were then from 2000 to 3000). Their houses were low, miserable huts, or a kind of vault built of stone partly underground. Their fuel (as there were scarcely any trees left in the island) consisted of grass, and, above all, the stalks of the sugar cane. They had a few canoes made of boards, and it was a mystery where they could have got the wood from which to build them, unless it was driftwood.