Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/384

356 from the different vegetables which grew in a garden belonging to a native of the island. But the guides who accompanied us, apprized me of the danger to which they believed I would expose myself. Pointing to a little shed, they several times repeated, with an air of respect blended with fear, the word maté, before our interpreter could explain to us, that, by this term, which means a dead person, they meant to signify the ancient possessor of the garden, who lay buried under the little shed, which we saw. The natives are persuaded, that the soul of the deceased possessors wander in the neighbourhood of such places, in order to preserve their products for the present proprietors. They believe, that any other person who should take any part of such products would die within the year; and so generally is this belief diffused, that seldom does any inhabitant allow himself to touch the property of another; so that this maté is a bugbear, which almost always insures the harvest to its legitimate possessor.

The General went on board to review the ship's company, and he procured advances for them all.

25th. My collection was already so numerous, and called for so much care, that I spent almost the whole of the 24th in preparing them; but the