Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/334

308 after an interval of half an hour, came and delivered us the articles which they owed.

[In this place the Author has minutely described a singular custom which prevails among the natives, who, according to him, cover certain parts of their bodies with a white shell, denominated bulla ovum, (See Plate III.) which, however, they appeared willing to dispose of. Delicacy forbids the Translator from entering either into a description of the shell, or of its uses.]

The great number of canoes with which we were surrounded, prevented many of them from approaching the ship; but some of the canoe-men swam towards us with the objects of their barter. Those islanders preferred, to every thing that we offered them, bits of iron in whatever form they happened to be. They so well distinguished that metal from all other substances, that they recognized it, even when coated with rust.

I thought that habit must have rendered those people excellent swimmers. But their movements were too precipitate; though they differed in no other respect from our good European swimmers. They needed not, however, to have made great efforts to support themselves in the water; for, by keeping their mouths shut, they immersed a part of the head. Several supported themselves in the water, by the motion of their feet