Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/66

52 diving they procure a considerable part of their food. We invited them to eat with us some oysters and lobsters, which we had just roasted on the coals; but they all refused, one excepted, who tasted a lobster. At first we imagined that it was yet too early for their meal-time; but in this we were mistaken, for it was not long before they took their repast. They themselves, however, dressed their food, which was shell-fish of the same kinds, but much more roasted than what we had offered them.

We observed some of the savages employed in cutting little bits of wood in the form of a spatula, and smoothing them with a shell, for the purpose of separating from the rocks limpets and sea-ears, on which they feast as they get ready.

The time for our returning on board arrived, but none of the natives would accompany us, they all leaving us, and retiring into the woods.

11th. The engineer-geographer of the Recherche went in the barge on the 11th in the morning, to examine the extent of the vast bay that is at the entrance of Dentrecasteaux strait. For this strait we were soon to set sail.

In the course of the day we quitted all the places we had occupied on shore during our stay in Rocky Bay. The repairs of both vessels were finished. The trial made the year before of the wood