Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/304

248 sion, the savages had attempted to seize the hatchets of our wood-cutters, whom they had attacked with stones, but two musket shots had been sufficient to disperse them.

I employed the whole of the 6th to describe and arrange the numerous collection of articles of natural history which I had brought with me from the mountains.

Next day the intelligence of the death of Captain Huon, which we learnt at day-break, spread a general sorrow amongst all those concerned in the expedition. This skilful naval officer had fallen a sacrifice to a hectic fever about one o'clock in the morning, after an illness of several months. He met death with the greatest coolness, and was interred, according to his particular desire, near the centre of the island of Pudyona, favoured by the veil of night. He had requested that no kind of monument might be erected for him, apprehensive that it might lead to a discovery of his burial place by the inhabitants of New Caledonia.

Soon after sun-rise eight of us went ashore, and penetrated into the woods in a west-south-west direction. We soon arrived at a cottage, from whence came a native carrying in his hand a mask, which he agreed to sell to me for two joiner's chissels. This mask was cut out of a piece of the wood of the cocoa tree (See Plate XXXVII.