We knew this island to be inhabited, by smoke which we saw in different parts of it, and we gave it the name of BOW ISLAND. Mr. Gore, my second lieutenant, said, after we had sailed by the island, that he had seen several of the natives, under the first clump of trees, from the deck; that he had distinguished their houses, and seen several canoes hauled up under the shade; but in this he was more fortunate than any other person on board. The east end of this island, which, from its figure, we called the Bow, lies in latitude 18° 23ʹ S., and longitude 141° 12ʹ W.; we observed the variation of the compass to be 5° 38ʹ E. On the next day, Thursday the 6th, about noon, we saw land again to the westward, and came up with it about three. It appeared to be two islands, or rather groups of islands, extending from N. W. by N. to S. E. by S. about nine leagues. Of these, the two largest were separated from each other by a channel of about half a mile broad, and were severally surrounded by smaller islands, to which they were joined by reefs that lay under water. These islands were long narrow strips of land, ranging in all directions, some of them ten miles or upwards in length, but none more than a quarter of a mile broad, and upon all of them there were trees of various kinds, particularly the cocoa-nut. The south-eastermost of them lies in the latitude of 18° 12ʹ S. and longitude 142° 42ʹ W., and at the distance of twenty-five leagues in the direction of W. ½ N. from the west end of Bow Island. We ranged along the S. W. side of this island, and hauled into a bay which lies to the N. W. of the southermost point of the Group, where there was a smooth sea, and the appearance of anchorage, without much surf on the shore. We sounded, but we found no bottom with one hundred fathom, at the distance of no more than three quarters of a mile from the beach; and I did not think it prudent to go nearer.