Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/376

314 country were built upon the summits of delightful hills, with which this side of the island abounds. We met with a very friendly reception from the inhabitants, who presented to us fruits of different kinds. One of them, who went to gather some cocoa-nuts for us, climbed very quickly to the top of the tree, by means of an expedient which to me appeared singular. He tied his legs together near the ancle with a stripe of cloth, by which he was enabled to grasp the trunk of the tree with his feet so strongly as to support the whole weight of his body; and, as the stem was not very thick, by thus clasping it alternately with his feet and his arms, he very soon reached the top.

We remarked some forts built on the most inaccessible heights amongst these hills, which serve the inhabitants for a place of refuge when their habitations are invaded by an enemy. These fortifications consist of stone walls of considerable thickness, and about ten or twelve feet high, inclosing a plot of ground from sixty to eighty feet square.

The natives who sold us stuffs a few days before, had not deceived us when they told us that they had been manufactured in the island of Bouton. We saw to-day, in several of the houses, looms for manufacturing similar stuffs; the