Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/232

212 weapons of defence in the places from whence they had fled: no doubt, they either carried them away, or carefully concealed them, for fear that we might employ them againt themelves.

Thee cattered huts indicated a very canty population; and the heaps of hells which we found near the ea-hore, hewed that thee avages derive their principal means of ubitence from the hell-fih which they find there. As we only once dicovered human bones in this country, and thoe partly burnt, it appears that they do not expoe the bodies of their dead to the open air. It is difficult to know whether it be their uual cutom to burn them: poibly they bury them in the earth, or throw them into the ea.

The great number of tracks marked with prints of the feet of quadrupeds, hew that they abound in this country. They probably remain during the day-time in the thicket part of thee inacceible forets.

A great number of mall rivulets dicharge themelves into the harbour. The ground was here o full of moiture, that wherever a hole was dug of a moderate depth, it immediately became filled with water.

We generally took copious draughts of fihes with