Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/296

244 semicircular form, and open at bottom all round to the height of about one foot, to admit a free circulation of air. We found no savages in either of two neighbouring huts, which were built near a bog, surrounded with the hibiscus tiliaceus; but contiguous to them we saw a large cultivated field, covered with yams, potatoes, and a sort of hypoxis, the roots of which those people eat, and which grows spontaneously in their forests.

It was already one hour after dark, when we at last arrived at the summit of the mountains; from whence, looking in a north-west direction, we perceived the lights of our vessels. At six or eight hundred paces below were several fires, lighted by the natives. The cold compelled us likewise to kindle a very large one, round which we sat down to refresh ourselves, after which we went to sleep, leaving two sentinels to guard two passages by which the islanders might come to surprize us, but none of them attempted to disturb our repose. Only at day-break the sentinel who was to the north-east espied three of them approaching very slowly, but they returned back on hearing him cry out to warn us of their coming.

5th. All our provisions being consumed, we felt sensibly the necessity of returning on board. I could not, however, resist the desire I had to spend