Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/219

] presents which she had just received from one of our officers, began to abuse her; and though his suspicions were without foundation, she had a great deal of difficulty to persuade him of his mistake. This chief was with his father-in-law. We made them some presents just as the son of king Toobou arrived, and they immediately hid them in their girdles: but Toobou perceived it, and we had soon a fresh proof that if the royal family enjoyed the honours of sovereignty, the family of Toobou reaped all its profits. Toobou searched the girdles of the two chiefs, and seized every thing they had just received. Futtafaihe had no other means of revenge but by preventing his eating in his presence, not suffering him to sit by his side, and placing his foot on his head: accordingly he presented his foot to him soon after, and Toobou paid him the homage due to a person of superior rank.

We had many times seen the chiefs openly taking to themselves things that belonged to people of the lower class; and we always remarked with surprise that this species of oppression by no means diminished the unalterable gaiety of their dispositions. When they were assembled together, you would hear them every moment burst out into great peals of laughter. Their government appeared to us, as it did to