Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/140

112 that they frequently rob one another. The chiefs, too, might have some interest in the thefts committed on us; for we frequently saw them seize what they found in the hands of their subjects, whom they plundered very openly.

We were extremely unwilling to proceed to extremities with these knaves; but it was high time to check their boldness, which impunity served only to encourage. With this view, we proposed to let them see the effect of our fire-arms on a cock, which we tied to the end of a long pole. But the person, who fired at it, was so incautious, as to take a double-barrelled gun, which had been exposed to the dampness of the air all the preceding night; in consequence of which, the first time it flashed in the pan, the next it hung fire; so that he was obliged to take another piece to bring down the cock. Accordingly the natives appeared to retain a much higher idea of their weapons than of ours, when one of them, with a long arrow, furnished with three diverging points, shot another cock, fixed at the end of the same pole. In order to take aim at the bird, having placed himself just under it, he raised himself as high as he could on tiptoe, so that the point of his arrow was not above four yards from the cock. All the rest had their eyes fixed upon him, and kept the most profound silence; but the moment