Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/253

] of the water, they threw it up against their faces with their hands, opening their mouths very wide, and catching as much as they could; thus they soon quenched their thirst. It may easily be conceived, that even the most expert at this method of drinking must wet the greatest part of their bodies. As they disturbed our water, we begged them to go lower down to drink, which request they immediately complied with.

Some of them approached the most robust amongst us, and, at different intervals, pressed with their fingers the most muscular parts of their arms and legs, pronouncing rapareck with an air of admiration, and even of longing, which rather alarmed us, but upon the whole they gave us no cause for dissatisfaction.

I observed in these places a number of plants belonging to the same genera with many of those I had collected in New Holland, although the two countries are at very great distance from each other.

We saw with surprize, about a third part of the ascent up the mountain, small walls raised one above another, to prevent the rolling down of the ground which the natives cultivated. I have found the same practice extremely general amongst the inhabitants of the mountains of Asia Minor.