Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/167

] She warned us against the danger of walking alone about the island in the evening, telling us, that thieves might take advantage of the darkness, to knock us down with their clubs, and then rob us.

On the 1st of, at six in the morning, the General set off, agreeably to the invitation of King Toobou, who meant to give him an entertainment in the island of Tongataboo. We accompanied him, with almost all the officers of the expedition, and a detachment well armed.

Some of the natives, who followed us in their canoes, made us coast along shore toward the west for some time, in order to conduct us to a place, where, they informed us, we should find a great number of the natives assembled with several of their chiefs. As soon as we landed, Feenou came to meet the General, and accompany him into the midst of a large assembly of the natives, with Omalaï at their head. This chief invited him to sit down on his left hand, after having ordered the natives, to arrange themselves in a circle round him. We rested ourselves a moment on some mats spread on the ground, under the shade of several trees, some of which were the cerbera manghas (Indian mango tree), others the hernandia ovigera (ovigerous jack-in-the-box tree), the fruit of which is used