Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/251

] rusty bottom of an iron candlestick, which probably had lain there ever since 1774, when Captain Cook anchored in this road.

23d. The next morning we went on shore at the nearest landing place, where we found a number of savages who were already taking some refreshment. They invited us to join them in eating some meat just broiled, which we distinguished to be human flesh. The skin which yet remained, preserved its form and even its colour on several parts. They shewed us they had just cut that piece from the middle of the arm, and they gave us to understand, by very expressive signs, that after having pierced with their darts the person of whose limbs we saw the remnants in their hands, they had dispatched him with their clubs. They no doubt wished to make us sensible that they only eat their enemies, and indeed it was not possible that we should have found so many inhabitants in this country, if they had had any other inducement but that of hunger to make them devour each other. We went to the south-south-west, and soon crossed a country which lies rather low, where we saw some plantations of yams and potatoes; we then came to the foot of some mountains, where we found ten of the inhabitants who joined our company. They soon began to climb up trees of the species