fended one after the other. The only entrance is by a
narrow passage, about twelve feet long, communicating with the steep
ascent from the beach: It passes under one of the fighting stages, and
though we saw nothing like a door or gateway, it may be easily
barricaded in a manner that will make the forcing it a very dangerous
and difficult undertaking. Upon the whole, this must be considered as a
place of great strength, in which a small number of resolute men may
defend themselves against all the force which a people with no other
arms than those that are in use here could bring against it. It seemed
to be well furnished for a siege with every thing but water; we saw
great quantities of fern root, which they eat as bread, and dried fish
piled up in heaps; but we could not perceive that they had any fresh
water nearer than a brook, which runs close under the foot of the hill:
Whether they have any means of getting it from this place during a
siege, or whether they have any method of storing it within the works in
gourds or other vessels, we could not learn; some resource they
certainly have with respect to this article, an indispensable necessary
of life, for otherwise the laying up dry provisions could answer no
purpose. Upon our expressing a desire to see their method of attack and
defence, one of the young men mounted a fighting stage, which they call
_Porava_, and another went into the ditch: Both he that was to defend
the place, and he that was to assault it, sung the war-song, and danced
with the same frightful gesticulations that we had seen used in more
serious circumstances, to work themselves up into a degree of that
mechanical fury, which, among all uncivilized nations, is the necessary
prelude to a battle; for dispassionate courage, a strength of mind that
can surmount the sense of danger, without a flow of animal spirits by
which it is extinguished, seems to be the prerogative of those who have
projects of more lasting importance, and a keener sense of honour and
disgrace, than can be formed or felt by men who have few pains or
pleasures besides those of mere animal life, and scarcely any purpose
but to provide for the day that is passing over them, to obtain plunder,
or revenge an insult: They will march against each other indeed in cool
blood, though they find it necessary to work themselves into passion
before they engage; as among us there have been many instances of people
who have deliberately made thems