Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/327

] they received them open as well as shut. Those people gave us some spears, armed with bits of vitreous, volcanic lava, terminating in a point, and very sharp in the edges. They also presented us with combs, having only three teeth, very distant from each other, very heavy bracelets, formed of large shells, and others consisting of small buccinæ, strung on a fibrous substance, as strong as the best hemp.

When asking for our articles in exchange for theirs, those savages often repeated the word capelle. It appeared to us that this was their name for iron, which they preferred to every thing we could offer them.

Like the natives of Bouka, they repeated with much justness, the French words which they heard us pronounce.

One of their canoes was driven by the swell against one of our boats, and received some damage. One of our rowers taking hold of it to prevent a second shock, a chief, misapprehending our intention, made the signal to the canoe-men, the greater part of whom precipitately jumped into the sea, with a design to swim on shore; but they returned as soon as they perceived their error, and confidence was re-established.

The women kept at some distance, under the cocoa-