Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/296

274 no difficulty in masticating the hardest biscuits which were offered to them.

Could those natives have had any communication with the English and the Spaniards? One of them, on showing us an arrow, which he was going to tie to the end of one of our strings to convey it on board, pronounced, very distinctly, the English word arrow. Another, showing us the land, and inviting us to it, made use of the Spanish word tierra.

We learned from the Esperance, that several of them pronounced the word Bouka, the name which General Bougainville gave to their island. This word, which in the Malayan language is the expression of negation, and which, when the first syllable is pronounced long, signifies to open, doubtless seems to indicate some analogy with the Malayan; from which, however, it differs so much, that one of the ship's company, who spoke the language fluently, could not understand those natives.

The value which they seemed to affix to nails, and the other articles of hardware which we gave them, showed that they were acquainted with the use of iron.

The colour of their skins is blackish. They are of a middling stature; and being naked, their distinctly