perhaps, cannot be better described than in the words of
the poet:--

Prince Giolo and his royal sisters,
Scarr'd with ten thousand comely blisters,
The marks remaining on the skin,
To tell the quality within:
Distinguish'd flashes deck the great,
As each excels in birth or state;
His oylet-holes are more and ampler;
The king's own body was a sampler.

Their weapons were wooden well-barbed spears, with their points
hardened by fire, each individual being provided with three or four.
We afterwards, however, found that these were not the only means of
defence, as they are possessed of slings, in the use of which they
acquire no inconsiderable expertness. The canoes appeared to be from 15
to 30 feet in length, and each capable of carrying from three to twelve
persons; these were provided with sails made of a kind of split rattan
matting, of an oblong square form, the longer side placed
perpendicularly, and some of them had a staff erected in the bow, with
a bunch of feathers at the top of it.

When our muskets were fired at sunset, the whole immediately shoved
off, being evidently much alarmed at the report; and most of them,
hoisting their sails, endeavoured to reach the shore with all possible
celerity.

_Sunday, October 28_.--Notwithstanding it rained heavily this morning,
a great number of the natives came off to us at an early hour for the
purpose of renewing their barter, to exchange their articles for pieces
of iron, a metal which they appear to hold in the highest estimation,
and which became the almost exclusive medium of our traffic with them.
This metal they wisely prefer, nay, almost worship, for its usefulness;
knives, hatchets, and iron-hoop, rank first in their good opinion,
scissors and razors holding a secondary place; for they deem six inches
in length of old iron-hoop, a quantity which would purchase
half-a-dozen yams, varying from six to twelve pounds each in weight,
far more valuable than the best razor you can present them with; in
short, the _ferri sacra fames_ may here be well substituted for the
_auri fames_ of more civilized nations. We may safely aver, that in our
intercourse with these people, we have the 'love of iron' the chief
exciting principle of their more generous, as well as malignant
passions,--an opinion which many subsequent anecdotes in this narrative
will prove.

The natives had to-day gained an evident accession of confidence, as
some of them ventured on b