Account of the Productions at Port Praflin, and Defcription of the Manners and Character of the People*.

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HE land all around the harbour, though under water at high tide, and marshy almost every where, is covered with tall foreft trees of various kinds.

"Among the trees which afford nourishment to man, are distinguished the cabbage-palm, which abounds there very much; the cocoa-nut tree, and many forts of almonds. One of the latter bears a fruit as long as a date, and contains, within a moderately tender covering, an almond, which divides into two parts like an acorn: its colour is a deep pink, and it has the smell of a green artichoke; when divided, each part draws after it threads of an unctuous matter it has no taste but a flight bitter; and the skin is about half a line thick. Another tree produces an almond, covered with a hufk not unlike that of walnuts; and while this fkin is tender, the favages eat them with lime; but when it grows riper, and bas become hard and ftringy, they pile them up together, that the outer coat may perish and drop off the fhell of this fruit is extremely hard, of an oblong shape, equally thick at both ends, and of an uneven furface. After breaking it off by ftrong blows of a hammer, an almond is al tained enveloped in a thin brown fkin, which very easily comes off; the nut is compoted of an affemblage of white

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irregular layers, which separate as soon as it is taken out of the fkin: this almond eaten with bread, is of a very delicate flavour, resembling that of the walnut, but is very oily. It feems to be one of the ordinary foods of the people of Port Praflin, who, to preferve the nuts, form them into bunches, or clusters, of about a foot long, and feven or eight inches thick, connecting and interlacing them together with great art. It was fuppofed to be their fea provifion, because many of those clufters were found among the booty taken that unfortunate day, on which it was found neceffary to punish their treachery. The tree, on which this almond grows, is of the largest size.

"Among other trees the wild coffee was obferved; and they thought they had met with ebony. The tacamahaca was alfo found, and several refinous and gummy trees; the firft produces the balfam, which bears the fame name; on another is gathered a very clear tranfparent gum, without either taste or fmell; a third produces a refinous matter, of a blackish colour, and a balfamic odeur, and its wood, on the leaft fcratch of the bark, yields a fimilar fmell.

"Surville and his companions were able to acquire but very fuperficial knowledge of the islands they vifited, and of their inhabitants; but the young T 2 Mander,

From the fame.

"The productions that Lova defcribed, of which only a few had been actually seen, are the banana, the fugar-cane, the yam, the cocoa, the anife; and the almond, which the inhabitants efteem so much. He endeavoured alfo to defcribe a fpecies of fruit which he could not find in Peru; but it was not poffible to gain any fatisfactory idea of it from his account. They eat turtles and their eggs, which are very abundant; and fifh, which is alfo very plentiful on that coaft: they alfo make great ufe of a plant called by them Binao, which ferves for bread.

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illander, named Lova Sarega, whom that the wild boar is very common in they took prifoner, and carried away the woods of the main land. The with them, and kept for two years, iflanders of Port Praslin were not unlearnt French with extreme facility; acquainted with fowls, for when they and from their converfations with him, faw them in the fhip, they immediately about the interior parts of the country, imitated their notes exactly; but they they gained information, which, from looked with aftonishment at the ducks, his youth, and the education of na- appeared never to have feen them, and ture, was, prob bly, true; excepting asked for fome. They also very exfuch fables as he had been taught in actly imitated the cry of the kid and his infancy, for fables are the produce the grunting of a hog, and pointed to of all countries. fhew that fome might be found in the iflands up the harbour. Among the infects, M. de l'Horme particularly remarked a spider, whose head and fore parts are rather fmall, black, and fprinkled with white fpots; its hinder part terminated by a fan-fhaped tail, of a pleafing red, fprinkled with black fpots; the body is long, cylindrical, and rounded at the end; the legs very long, and marked with black and white, nearly at equal intervals. He obferved alfo ants of a prodigious fize and flies with black and grey legs, the extremities of the wings grey, and the body of a greyish black, like the middle fized brizes of Europe, which fting fo cruelly in wet feafons. In the woods he met with a small fnake, the fize of a little finger, and about two feet and a half long; the back of a ftraw colour, regular y difpofed in fmall fquares, among which were fome of a very clear grey, and the belly in cartilaginous fcales of very pale yellow this fnake twice darted at a foldier, who at length killed it with his bayonet. He faw alfo a toad, which he thought fingular enough to deferve a particular defcription: its back, along the whole length of the body, is fharp and fioped on each fide, like a pent house; at a small distance, from the shoulders, the head, or fnout, takes the form of a lance, equally floped off like the back; and near the angle are placed the eyes, on a kind of fcale, or cartilage; the feet have nothing in them uncommon, and the animal moves by bounds like the toads of Europe.

"The different kinds of fpices used in Europe were fhown to Lova; he knew nothing of that kind in his own country, but a very large tree, the bark of which has a tafte much refembling that of cinnamon, to which, as was very natural, he preferred it: the inhabitants of Port Praflin ufe it as they do the betel, areca, and lime.

The woods are peopled with prodigious numbers of cockatoos, lories, ring-doves, and a kind of blackbird, larger than thofe of Europe. They find alie, in the marshes, curlews, ftints, a fort of faipe, and another bird about the fize of our duck, with an afh-coloured back, the breaft, belly, and under part of the wings, a fine white: there are alfo falamanders, fome of which, were taken, and meafured above five feet from the head to the end of the tail. No quadruped was feen on the flands which were vifited; but Lova Sarega, affirmed,

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be killed and eaten, appear to confirm this fufpicion; and the known ferocity of these islanders might be fufficient perhaps to change it to certainty.

The arms of these people are the bow and arrows, the fpear, and a kind of clubs. The bow is made of a black elastic wood, moderately heavy, the ftring is compofed of the filaments of the palmetto. The body of the arrow, which is above three feet long, by 14 lines in circumfe rence, is a reed; the extremity is compofed of three or four pieces joined together by a very hard maftic, and armed with a bone cut to a very fharp point: the bone commonly ufed for this purpofe is one that is found in the tail of the fea devil. If thefe arrows are not poifoned, they are not the lefs dangerous; for fome part of them must always ftay behind in the wound. Their lances, fome of which are about ten feet long, and two inches and a half round, others eight feet by one inch ten lines, are made of palmetto-wood painted black, and terminated in a quare at the end, with which they strike: they are ufually armed with a bone about fix inches long; and the teeth cut in it are fo difpefed, that it cannot poffibly be drawn out without tearing the flesh. The clubs are made of a very heavy red wood; they vary in length, but are usually about thirty inches; and then they carry them fastened to a kind of fash, and hanging on the left fide, as we wear a couteau de chaffe the fhape of these clubs is a flat lozenge; and it is aftonishing with what precifion they fit and in:ay a fish-bone on the two furfaces, which ferves to mark the middle. To defend themfelves from arrows, they have fhields made of (plit rattan, woven together like our wicker work: one fide has two handles or holders, through which the arm paffes: when they are in their boats, they cover their backs or heads with them, and ufe them as umbrellas. Some of thefe

bucklers are ornamented at the four corners with tufts or taffels of red and yellow ftraw, made into a kind of ribband.

In the canoes that were feized, many utenfils and implements were found which thefe people employ in conftructing their veffels; a hammer, made of a black conical ftene, ftrongly fixed with twisted rattan upon a handle of wood; and an adze, made of a piece of very hard fhell, feemingly of the fame kind as that used in bracelets: this hell is cut in the fhape of a gun-flint, and fixed in a very folid manner, by means of rattan, to a piece of wood naturally bent into the fhape of a pick-axe. Mother-of-pearl, which they find abundantly on the fhore, ferves them for knives, and the sharp edge of a flint fupplies the place of a razor to fhave their hair and beards. They make fishing-nets with the filaments of the bark of the palmetto; and those that they form for bags are worked with great art. In their canoes was found a kind of greafe, of a balfamic odour, which was fuppofed at first to be an ointment, but Lova Sarega, having feen a candle lighted, gave them to underftand that it was used for the fame purpofe; it was therefore tried, and the light it gave was clearer than that of our wax candles, and attended with an agreeable smell.

The canoes of these islanders are constructed with great good fenfe, and finished with much skill: they are not formed of a trunk of a tree, made hollow by ftone inftruments or fire, as thofe of many favage nations are, but are made of pieces put together. In the finall canoes the planks are not more than a third of an inch in thickness, and in working them they form on the infide a kind of loops, which at intervals are tied ftrongly with rat-, tan to ribs of wood, bent in the fhape of the boat, and ferving as its frame; nor are thefe planks held together by any other means; the joints are ftop

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ped with a black maftic, tolerably hard, out, in an inftant: aud the quickness of their motion is proportioned to their lightness: one was feen, which was 56 feet long by three feet and a half broad.

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