Mark's Pages

"When Tupaia and his companions returned to their canoes, Cook and most of the officers went below decks to eat dinner. In their absence, the warriors in several of these canoes tried to seize the anchor buoy in a concerted manoeuvre. As they hauled the buoy out of the water, the marines fired smallshot over their heads, and wounded one of the ringleaders in the arm with a musketball. One of the great guns was fired, the warriors threw the buoy back into the sea in consternation, and as the cannonball skipped over the surface and rolled inland, the crews of two or three canoes paddled furiously ashore and ran up the beach to find it. Tupaia called out to these people, and after a while persuaded them to return peacefully to the vessel." — Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog.