Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/231

1773.
May.
Thursday 20.The next day we went to the Hippah, or fortification of the natives, where Mr. Bailey, the astronomer of the Adventure had fixed his observatory. It is situated on a steep insulated rock, which is accessible only in one place, by a narrow difficult path, where two persons cannot go abreast. At the top it had been surrounded by some palisadoes, but these were in most parts removed, and had been used for fuel by our people. The huts of the natives stood promiscuously within the enclosure, and had no walls, but consisted only of a roof, which rose into a steep ridge. The inner skeletons of these huts were branches of trees plaited so as to resemble hurdles; on these they had laid the bark of trees, and covered the whole with the rough fibres of the flag, or New Zeeland flax-plant. We were told, that the people from the Adventure had found them exceeding full of vermin, and particularly fleas, from which it should seem that they had been but lately inhabited; and indeed it is not unlikely, that all these strong places are only the occasional abode of the natives, in case of danger from their enemies; and that they forsake them, whenever their personal safety does not require their residence. Our fellow-voyagers likewise found immense numbers of rats upon the Hippah rock, so that they were obliged to put some large jars in the ground, level with the surface, into which these vermin fell during night, by running backwards and forwards; and great number of them were caught in thismanner.