Another accident also about this time was, notwithstanding all our caution, very near embroiling us with the Indians. I sent the boat on shore with an officer to get ballast for the ship, and not immediately finding stones convenient for the purpose, he began to pull down some part of an enclosure where they deposited the bones of their dead. This the Indians violently opposed, and a messenger came down to the tents to acquaint the officers that they would not suffer it. Mr. Banks immediately repaired to the place, and an amicable end was soon put to the dispute by sending the boat’s crew to the river, where stones enough were to be gathered without a possibility of giving offence. It is very remarkable, that these Indians appeared to be much more jealous of what was done to the dead than the living. This was the only measure in which they ventured to oppose us, and the only insult that was offered to any individual among us was upon a similar occasion. Mr. Monkhouse, happening one day to pull a flower from a tree which grew in one of their sepulchral enclosures, an Indian, whose jealousy had probably been upon the watch, came suddenly behind him, and struck him. Mr. Monkhouse laid hold of him, but he was instantly rescued by two more, who took hold of Mr. Monkhouse’s hair, and forced him to quit his hold of their companion, and then ran away without offering him any farther violence. In the evening of the 19th, while the canoes were still detained, we received a visit from Oberea, which surprised us not a little, as she brought with her none of the things that had been stolen, and knew that she was suspected of having some of them in her custody. She said, indeed, that her favourite Obadee, whom she had beaten and dismissed, had taken them away; but she seemed conscious, that she had no right to be believed. She discovered the strongest signs of fear, yet she surmounted it with astonishing resolution; and was very pressing to sleep with her attendants in Mr. Banks’s tent. In this, however, she was not gratified; the affair of the jacket was too recent, and the tent was besides filled with other people. Nobody else seemed willing to entertain her, and she, therefore, with great appearance of mortification and disappointment, spent the night in her canoe.