Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/350

292 brought them in the morning, were seized with retchings, from the apprehension that this food, which seemed to be so highly grateful to the islanders, was partly composed of human flesh.

The two canoes were soon near enough together to commence the engagement. The combatants were seen mounted upon a platform of wood, supported by the out-rigger and the canoe, from whence they threw stones with their slings, each of them wearing a buckler upon his left arm, with which he endeavoured to ward of the stones thrown by his adversary. They, however, separated after a fight of half a quarter of an hour, in which none of them appeared to have been dangerously wounded, and returned to the shore.

The captain of the Esperance sent to the Commander a tomahawk and a buckler which he had obtained from these savages.

The tomahawk was very broad, and flat at one of its extremities. The buckler was the first defensive weapon which we had observed among the savage nations we had hitherto visited. It was made of very hard wood, and of the form represented in Plate XII, Fig. 7 and 8. It was nearly three feet in length, a foot and a quarter in breadth, and upwards of half an inch in thickness. The outer side was slightly convex. About