Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/276

226 a very delicious morsel. It was no longer difficult for us to conceive why they felt our legs and arms with their fingers in a longing manner, at which times they made a slight whistling noise, produced by shutting the teeth, and applying the end of the tongue to them, then opening their mouths, they gave several smacks with their lips.

We went on shore on the 28th, but not being in sufficient numbers, durst not venture to go far beyond our watering place. We no longer saw in the environs large parties of natives, as on the first days after anchoring here, which made us think that they had returned to their habitations, probably at a considerable distance from this place: indeed how could such a vast number of men have found the means of subsistence on a coast so extremely barren.

Next day (the 29th), we set off early, to the number of eighteen, all well armed, with the intention of ascending a very high mountain, situated to the south-south-east, and from thence descending, if the weather should prove favourable, into a delightful valley, which we had already perceived at a great distance behind the mountain.

We marched at first towards the east along the