Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/288

236 Islanders for food. We found several of the species known by the name of benitier, of the length of twelve or thirteen inches. They still bore the marks of the fire which had served to dress the animal contained in them.

The women principally are employed in fishing for shell-fish. We saw some of them from time to time, opposite to where we lay at anchor, who advanced into the water up to their waists and gathered great quantities, which they discovered in the sand, by means of pointed sticks with which they groped for them.

We had already gone about three miles along the coast without finding any stream of water, when three young savages came to meet us, and persuaded us to follow them to their cottage, not far out of our road. We then found a spring, below which they had dug some trenches to conduct the water to some plants of the arum macrorrhizon, the roots of which they eat.

We were on the slope of a small hill, under the shade of some cocoa trees. One of the savages, whom I requested to procure us some of their fruit, climbed to the top of the tree with an extraordinary degree of agility.

We soon after continued our course to the westward. The air was serene, and the heat