immediately retired into the mangrove bushes which concealed them from
our view. This manoeuvre was evidently intended to decoy us into their
power, and served to increase our caution.

Soon afterwards their fires were seen about a mile behind the mangroves
and in the evening the canoe was observed to pass up the river with the
same two natives in it.

July 5.

On the 5th we landed at the long north sandy point, and measured a base
line of 231 chains from the point to the end of the beach, where it is
terminated by a rocky head that forms the base of a steep hill; this we
climbed, and from its summit obtained a very extensive view of the reefs
near the coast; but as the weather was too hazy to allow of our making
any observation upon distant objects, very few of the reefs in the offing
were distinctly seen.

On the beach we passed the wreck of a canoe, large enough to carry seven
or eight persons; it measured nineteen feet in length, and twenty-two
inches in the bilge, and appeared, like that of Blomfield's Rivulet, to
be made of the trunk of the Erythrina indica, hollowed out either by fire
or by some blunt tool. A piece of teak-wood, one side of which bore the
marks of green paint, was found washed up on the beach; it had probably
dropped or been thrown overboard from some ship passing by; several
coconuts which had been evidently washed on shore were also lying above
the tides' mark.

July 6.