July 21 to 22.

We were detained at this anchorage from thick and squally weather for two
days. On the 22nd the gentlemen visited Sunday Island. The island is
composed of a heap of rocks covered with a thickly-matted underwood, and
surrounded by a coral reef; it is about a mile and a half in
circumference and rather higher than the islands in its vicinity. It had
been visited by the natives some time since, but there were no traces of
turtle, nor anything to induce our gentlemen to repeat their visit.

July 24.

Early on the morning of the 24th we left Margaret Bay; and steering to
the northward passed close round the western side of the Bird Isles of
Captain Cook. Eight or ten natives were standing on the sandy point of
the north-easternmost islet, attentively engaged in watching us as we
passed by; and near them were two canoes hauled up on the beach. The
canoes appeared to be of similar construction to that seen at Endeavour
River; but certainly were not more than sixteen or eighteen feet in
length. The late Admiral Bligh, in his account of the Bounty's voyage,
has described one that he saw and measured at Sunday Island, the place we
had just left; it was thirty-three feet long and would hold twenty men;
but from his account it must have been of bark, for he says, "the canoe
was made of three pieces, the bottom entire, to which the sides were
sewed in the common way."* The largest canoe that we have seen did not
measure more than eighteen feet in length.

(*Footnote. Bligh's Voyage to the South Seas page 210.)

After leaving this group we experienced a considerable swell from the