LANGUAGE. 
283 
are apparently of the same tribe as the Bim- 
bians, but they are somewhat taller, and more 
muscular, especially about the lower extremities. 
The teeth are filed much in the same way as their 
neighbours; the eyes are bright, quick, and restless, 
expressive both of distrust and determination. Their 
abrupt and resolute demeanour shows how little they 
have associated with Europeans, and how much influ- 
ence is exerted on their character, by the state of 
hostility in which they live with the people on the 
mainland. They subsist chiefly by fishing; exchanging 
the produce of the sea for vegetables, bananas, yams, &c., 
with their neighbours, who meet them at a sort of 
neutral spot on the main, where a market is held. 
That they are not wanting in the necessaries of life is 
evident in their robust and healthy look, which may 
also be influenced in some measure by the dryness and 
superior salubrity of their island homes. Water is the 
most scarce article ; and excepting such trifling quan- 
tities as are left by the showers, in the small natural 
excavations in the rocks, they are dependent on the 
springs of the adjacent coast. Their language is a 
dialect of the Dualla, having but slight diflerences, 
and these principally in the pronunciation. They 
have no tradition of their origin; but some pages of 
their past and future history may be read in the 
physical nature of the island, which doubtless was at 
no distant period joined to the mainland, forming a 
promontory similar to one at the south-east side of the 
