17th May 1898

TUESDAY

Sighted  Tinakula Island (Volcano) stopped off Cape Invarion on the Island of SantaCruz of the Santa Cruz group these with Tinakula a lot more islands are called the Queen Charlotte Group, our purpose being to annex them and all the Islands round about, and pace them under British Protection hoisting the British Flag on each we lay off a village and sent a boat in for the purpose of bringing off an Englishman (Forrest?) which had great scope with the natives, but they found out from a canoe when near in shore that he did not live there, so they took the oldest man out of the canoe and let the others go, they brought him on board, and turn him over to the Captain who took him on the bridge and made him by signs and gesture paint out in what direction the trader lived after a little trouble they managed to make him understand what was wanted, we then proceeded a few miles along the coast to the place of the trader, Rosia Granville, stopped off there the trader came on board and was with the Captain three or four hours, he then went on shore again and returned shortly after fully equipped for a Sea Voyage having two natives as body servants with him, his business was to act as interpreter and to point out all the largest villages on the Islands and the best way of approaching them in fact a kind of a pilot in everything we proceeded further along the coast till we came to Graciosa Bay we went inside and anchored for the night. We had look outs stationed all round the ship in case of surprise, as the natives so we was warned might make a dash on us during the night mistaking us for a Merchant- man instead of a Man of War, the Natives of these Islands are very much different to the Solomon Islands, they are very finely made, and of a dark copper colour through there nose they wear a thick tortoise shell ring about 1 2/2 inch in diameter in their ears they have a collection of Tortoise and Sea Shell rings,one had at least thirty of these rings in his ears and must have weighed as much as 1/2 lb the lobes of the ear were stretched to an enormous size, I noticed that some of them had got their ornaments tied round their ears on account of their lobe having been torn away, no doubt through a- mount that he had got in them, there was a great crowd of them collected about the ship and after time they came alongside in their canoes a very fine and neatly made grass mat was their only article of clothing passed round their loins then between the legs and tucked n before and behind in the same manner as the natives of the Florida Group, they wore large shell rings around the upper arm and some had a large shell breast plate with some sort of design made out of tortoise shell hung round their necks, but most conspicuous of all was their large red Wooden Bows and from a dozen to twenty long and highly ornamented poisonous arrows, their canoes were laden up fully with Native produce and sheaves of theses arrows, which are certainly the most terrible and deadly weapons we came acroos, they are not feathered  like those they use for archery in England but are made of a simple cane shaft four or five feet long and carved with some care the designs upon them being coloured with Red & white kind of stain, the points are long and thin and of a light brown colour the tips being made of human bone, the canoes of these islands are not made out of a single log as most of the islands in the pacific are, but are partly built, they have got the usual outrigger but in addition they have a counterbalancing platform on the other side on which they carry bundles of arrows, Coca Nuts, Bread Fruit & other native produce which they use for bartering with, the way they handle the canoes is something remarkable, there were several of them upset in their eagerness to get along side, but the owners swimming up to them would in less than no time with a swinging motion shake a good deal of the water out, they would then jump in and commence bailing out with the greatest ease, all their trading stuff being fastened with coarse native rope made from the fibre of Coca nuts,

A few of the natives were allowed on board at a time , they started trading in Bows & Arrows Shells, Yams, and different native trinkets taking in return Coloured Calico, Sticks of Tobacco, Pipes or any little thing that would catch their eye, things that you would throw away on the scrap heap at home, Our tunic buttons and Cap ornaments where in great demand, you could get a Native Canoe Wife and all his family if you would give a chief one of our Brass Front Plates of our Helmet, on the whole they were a very savage and ferocious lot and could not be trusted.