98 Porter^s Voyage 



his people that I praised the house they had built above all the . 

 rest. 



It seems strange how a people, living under no form of govern- . 

 ment that we could ever perceive, having no chiefs over them who 

 appear to possess any authority, having neither rewards to 

 stimulate them to exertion, nor dread of punishment before them, 

 should be capable of conceiving and executing, with the rapidity 

 of lightning, works which astonished us. They appear to act 

 with one mind, to have the same thought, and to be operated on 

 by the same impulse. They can be compared only to the bea- 

 vers, whose instinct teaches them to design and execute works 

 which claim our admiration. Of all the labours, that which most 

 surprised me was, carrying the gun to the mountains. I have 

 since, with much difficulty, and at the hazard of breaking my 

 neck, travelled the path by which it was carried, or rather I have 

 scrambled along the sides of the precipices, and climbed the 

 almost perpendicular rocks and mountains, to the summits of which 

 they succeeded in raising it ; and I never should have believed it 

 possible that a people so devoid of artificial means of assisting 

 labour, should have been able to perform a task so truly hercu- 

 lean. I inquired by what manner they had divided the labour 

 among themselves, in order that each might share his proportion 

 of it. They told me they had carried it by valleys, that is, the 

 people of one valley had agreed to take it a certain distance, 

 when it was to be received and carried on by those of another 

 valley, and so on to the top of the mountain. This was all the 

 information I could obtain on the subject. No doubt they had 

 recourse to some mode of apportioning the labour among them- 

 selves ; for it was observed that they, from time to time, relieved 

 each other, and that some were occupied solely in the transporta- 

 tion of the carriage. The gun was brought down again, without 

 any desire being expressed on my part, when it was no longer ex- 

 pected to be of use. I had felt indifferent about the gun, as we 

 had an abundance of them, and if I had any wish on the sub- 

 ject, it was that it should remain on the mountains as a monu- 

 ment of their great exertions. 



As I before remarked, they have no chiefs who appear to 

 assume any authority over them. They have only patriarchs, 

 who possess solely the mild and gentle influence of a kind and in- 

 dulgent father among his children. Gattanewa owns much land, 

 and his tenants pay him in kind. When presents are to be made, 

 he calls upon them for his due in hogs, cocoa-nuts, bananas, or 

 bread-fruit; other landholders follow his example, the contributors 

 assemble before his house, one with two or more cocoa-nuts, a 

 bunch of bananas, one or two bread-fruit, a hog, a stalk of sugar- 

 , cane, or a root of tarra. When all are collected, Gattanewa, his 



