Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/335

] a pretty exact representation. We were at the distance of 1,500 toises, when a canoe rowed from the shore, and came alongside of our vessel. It was manned by four of the natives, who were very thankful for the presents of stuffs and hardware which we made them, and immediately gave us in return some cocoa-nuts, which, like most of the natives of the South Seas, they call niou.

They appeared highly pleased with the nails which we gave them; and continually begged for more, frequently repeating the word maté (death), and endeavouring to intimate to us by their gestures, that they intended to employ them against their enemies. Eight other canoes soon joined the first, and approached our vessel without shewing any signs of fear. We admired the elegant form of their canoes, which were exactly similar to those we had seen the preceding days at the easterly part of the Arsacides. (See Plate XLIV). They were about twenty-one feet in length, two in breadth, and fifteen inches in depth. The bottom consisted of a single piece cut from the trunk of a tree, and the sides were formed of a plank, the whole length of the boat, supported by beams fixed at equal distances into the bottom: at both ends other planks were attached to the first. These were ornamented on the