Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/111

] The natives had kindled a large fire on the loftiest of the hills that skirt the sea, and which extend to Cape North. At half after five we were a very little way from the Cape, when two canoes came off from the shore, and paddled toward us. They soon came up with us, but remained some time astern of the ship before they ventured alongside. Judging rightly of our disposition toward them, however, they approached with confidence; aware, no doubt, that the Europeans, who had visited them, had never been the aggressors when any dispute arose. They immediately showed us bundles of the New-Zealand flax (phormium tenax), shaking them, in order that we might observe all their beauty, and offering to barter with us. The stuffs of different colours we gave them were received with marks of great satisfaction, and they always delivered to us, with the most scrupulous exactness, the price on which we had agreed.

Iron they decidedly preferred to every thing else that we offered them. This metal is so valuable in the eyes of these warlike people, that expressions of the most lively joy burst from them when they found we had some. Though at first we showed it them only at a distance, they knew it perfectly well, from the sound two pieces gave when struck against each other.