The cattle and other new objects that presented themselves to him there, did not strike him with so much surprise as one might have expected. Perhaps his mind was too much taken up about his own safety to allow him to attend to other things. It is certain that he seemed very uneasy; and the ship, on our getting on board, happening to be standing off shore, this circumstance made him the more so. I could get but little new information from him; and, therefore, after he had made a short stay, I ordered a boat to carry him in toward the land. As soon as he got out of the cabin, he happened to stumble over one of the goats: his curiosity now overcoming his fear, he stopped, looked at it, and asked Omai what bird this was? and not receiving an immediate answer from him, he repeated the question to some of the people upon deck. The boat having conveyed him pretty near to the surf, he leaped into the sea and swam ashore. He had no sooner landed, than the multitude of his countrymen gathered round him, as if with an eager curiosity to learn from him what he had seen; and in this situation they remained when we lost sight of them. As soon as the boat returned, we hoisted her in, and made sail from the land to the northward. Thus were we obliged to leave unvisited, this fine island, which seemed capable of supplying all our wants. It lies in the latitude of 21° 57ʹ S. and in the longitude of 201° 53ʹ E. Such parts of the coast as fell under our observation, are guarded by a reef of coral rock, on the outside of which the sea is of an unfathomable depth. It is full five leagues in circuit, and of a moderate and pretty equal height; though in clear weather it may be certainly seen at the distance of ten leagues; for we had not lost sight of it at night when we had run above seven leagues, and the weather was cloudy. In the middle it rises into little hills, from whence there is a gentle descent to the shore, which at the south-west part is steep, though not above ten or twelve feet high; and has several excavations made by the beating of the waves against a brownish sand-stone of which it is composed. The descent here is covered with trees of a deep green colour, very thick, but not high, which seem all of one sort, unless nearest the shore, where there are great numbers of that species of _dracæna_ found in the woods of New Zealand, which are also scattered in some other places. On the north-west part, the shore, as we mentioned above, ends in a sandy beach; beyond which the land is broken down into small chasms or gullies, and has a broad border of trees resembling tall willows; which, from its regularity, might be supposed a work of art, did not its extent forbid us to think so. Farther up on the ascent, the trees were of the deep green mentioned before. Some of us supposed these to be the _rima_, intermixed with low cocoa palms, and a few of some other sorts. They seemed not so thick as