Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/307

] after we had quitted them, a savage come running towards us with the pistol, which he said he had found on the sands. In fact, the soldier remembers having left it in the place where we had dined. A piece of cloth and a waistcoat proved a very agreeable recompense to the islander. He followed us for some time accompanied by another Caledonian; then bid us adieu; pronouncing the word alaoué, bowing slightly with his head, retiring with an appearance of great satisfaction.

When we had reached the shore, one of us fired his piece as a signal to the ship's company, that a boat might be sent off for us; the noise of the explosion collected above eighty of the natives around us. We invited them to sit down as fast as they arrived, in order to prevent them from coming too close, and notwithstanding the disproportion of our number, (for we were only eight,) they all agreed to our request. One of these savages had a few tolerably sweet oranges, which he consented to sell to me for a pair of scissars.

We learned, on arriving on board, that several persons belonging to the Esperance, being in a canoe, had been assailed this morning with a shower of stones by the natives, on which it was found necessary to fire several musket shot to make them retire into the wood. It must, how-