Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/344

286 especially towards the farther end of a large bay that extends to S.S.W. We soon perceived several canoes rowing towards us, each manned by ten or eleven natives, who kept at the distance of about a hundred yards from our vessel, till some pieces of cloth, which we threw into the sea for them, induced them to approach nearer. They appeared much surprized at seeing a young black on board of our vessel, whom we had brought with us from Amboyna. They did not understand him when he addressed them in the Malay language. These savages had all woolly hair and olive-coloured skins; I observed, however, one amongst them who was as black as the negroes of Mozambique, and resembled them also in other particulars. His lower lip, as is the case with them, projected considerably beyond the upper. All these islanders used betel; and they were all stark naked. They wore bracelets ornamented with shells. Many of them had a small piece of bone passed through the partition between the nostrils; others wore a string of shells like a scarf over their shoulders.

They presented to us roots baked in the ashes, and carefully peeled. We observed no other weapons amongst them than short javelins, pointed only at one end.

Their huts were supported six or eight feet