WHALING VOYAGE. 
313 
journey towards the island upon which we wished to 
land to procure some cocoa nuts, and we were not long 
before we arrived there, from near the edge of which a 
few cocoa-nut trees reared their heads to an extraordi- 
nary height,— they were above eighty feet in altitude, 
and they were the only trees of the kind that we could 
perceive within a mile. Directly we landed we saw an 
animal dart through the foliage having the form of a 
lizard, which appeared upwards of three feet in length, 
but its flight was so sudden that we had no time to 
observe its entire form. We now set two of our Sand- 
wich islanders to climb the cocoa-nut trees, which they 
speedily did by the use of a band, which embraced them 
and the trees likewise, it being placed a little below the 
climbers’ arms, when by means of their knees and hands 
they ascended those tall trees with ease and celerity, 
and they soon began to throw down the cocoa nuts 
which they found at their tops in great numbers. They 
were the largest and finest I ever saw, and such was 
their weight and richness that they burst into pieces 
when they came in contact with the sand, and we lost 
all their milk, or nearly so ; our sailors however, not 
choosing to lose their long-expected treat, caught them 
up as they fell, and drank as much of the delicious 
juice as they could save, but unfortunately, one of them 
in falling came in contact with the hip of one of our 
men, and felled him to the earth with such violence, 
that after he fell he continued to lie apparently lifeless 
upon the sand. We called to the islanders to cease 
throwing down any more, and we ran towards Steward, 
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