A great many canoes, filled with the natives, were about the ships all day; and a trade commenced betwixt us and them, which was carried on with the strictest honesty on both sides. The articles which they offered to sale were skins of various animals, such as bears, wolves, foxes, deer, racoons, polecats, martins; and, in particular, of the sea otters, which are found at the islands east of Kamtschatka. Besides the skins in their native shape, they also brought garments made of them, and another sort of clothing made of the bark of a tree, or some plant like hemp; weapons, such as bows, arrows, and spears; fish-hooks, and instruments of various kinds; wooden vizors of many different monstrous figures; a sort of woollen stuff, or blanketing; bags filled with red ochre; pieces of carved work; beads; and several other little ornaments of thin brass and iron, shaped like a horse-shoe, which they hang at their noses; and several chissels, or pieces of iron, fixed to handles. From their possessing which metals, we could infer that they had either been visited before by some civilized nation, or had connections with tribes on their continent, who had communication with them. But the most extraordinary of all the articles which they brought to the ships for sale were human skulls, and hands not yet quite stripped of the flesh, which they made our people plainly understand they had eaten; and, indeed, some of them had evident marks that they had been upon the fire. We had but too much reason to suspect, from this circumstance, that the horrid practice of feeding on their enemies is as prevalent here as we had found it to be at New Zealand and other South Sea islands. For the various articles which they brought, they took in exchange knives, chissels, pieces of iron and tin, nails, looking-glasses, buttons, or any kind of metal. Glass beads they were not fond of; and cloth of every sort they rejected. We employed the next day in hauling our ships into the cove, where they were moored head and stern, fastening our hawsers to the trees on shore. On heaving up the anchor of the Resolution, we found, notwithstanding the great depth of water in which it was let go, that there were rocks at the bottom. These had done some considerable damage to the cable; and the hawsers that were carried out, to warp the ship into the cove, also got foul of rocks; from which it appeared that the whole bottom was strewed with them. The ship being again very leaky in her upper works, I ordered the carpenters to go to work to calk her, and to repair such other defects, as on examination we might discover.