Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/72

56 us, that we might decorate them with the ornaments which we had intended for themselves.

I ought not to omit a waggish trick, which a young savage played one of our people. The sailor had laid down a bag full of shell-fish at the foot of a rock: the youth slily removed it to another place, and let him search for it a long time in vain; at length he replaced it where the sailor had left it, and was highly diverted with the trick he had played him.

This numerous party was transported with admiration, when they saw the effects of gunpowder thrown on the burning coals. They all intreated us to let them have the pleasure of seeing it several times.

Not being able to persuade themselves that we had none but men among us, they long believed, notwithstanding all we could say, that the youngest of us were women. Their curiosity on this head carried them further than we should have expected, for they were not to be convinced, till they had assured themselves of the fact.

The women have adopted a mode which I imagine our belles will never imitate, though it occasions the disappearance of a considerable part of the wrinkles that pregnancy occasions. They have the skin of the abdomen marked with three large