Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/255

] On our descent from these mountains, we stopped at the bottom in the midst of several families of savages assembled in the neighbourhood of their huts, to whom we signified a desire to quench our thirst with the water of the cocoa nuts; but as this fruit is rather scarce in that part of the island, they consulted together for a considerable time before they agreed to sell us any. At last one of their number went to pull a few from the top of one of the highest trees, in order to bring them to us. We were extremely surprised at the rapidity with which he ascended, holding the body of the tree with his hands, he ran along the whole length of it, almost with as much ease and celerity as if he had been walking on an horizontal plain. I never before had occasion to admire such agility amongst any of the other islanders whom we had visited.

The sea water frequently washed the foot of the tree from which our cocoa nuts were taken, so that the liquor with which they were filled was somewhat sour, but we drank it, being extremely thirsty. The children of these savages waited till we had emptied the water of the cocoa nuts, when they begged them of us, finding means to get something more from them. They tore with their teeth the fibrous covering of these young fruits, of which the nuts were scarcely formed,