These projections serve to protect the driver from the
rain and the rays of the sun, whichever way they may chance to fall.
The oxen, of which there was always only a pair, were yoked at such
a distance from the waggon, that the driver could walk very
conveniently in the intervening space.
I profited by the half-hour allowed for breakfast to proceed to the
sea-shore, whence I observed a number of men busily employed on the
dangerous rock in the middle of the most violent breakers. Some of
them loosened, by the aid of long poles, oysters, mussels, etc.,
from the rocks, while others dived down to the bottom to fetch them
up. I concluded that there must be pearls contained inside, for I
could not suppose that human beings would encounter such risks for
the sake of the fish alone; and yet this was the case, for I found,
later, that though the same means are employed in fishing for
pearls, it is on the eastern coast and only during the months of
February and March.
The boats employed by these individuals were of two kinds. The
larger ones, which contained about forty persons, were very broad,
and composed of boards joined together and fastened with the fibres
of the cocoa-tree; the smaller ones were exactly like those I saw in
Tahiti, save that they appeared still more dangerous.
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