Thus the most cursory communication with the natives convinced us that they must already have repeatedly done business with English ship captains, who had imparted to them a slight knowledge of the English language, and a few of the simpler principles of humanity and religion. When we gave them to understand that we visited them as friends, they replied in their broken English: "Not merely friends--brothers! all brothers! all only one father and one mother!" Hereupon each proceeded to light one of the cigars that had been presented to them, while, for want of any other receptacle, they secreted the remainder in the wide holes transpiercing the lobes of the ears, after which they with the most frank munificence, and in token of their hospitality, pulled a number of young cocoa-nuts from the tree, and gave us their fluid contents to drink. Very singular was the method in which this was effected. They tie their feet together by the ankles with a loop of the same bast, or bark rope, which, when employed in fastening their long black locks, usually forms such a picturesque frontlet, and then clamber with the agility of cats to the summit of the palm, throw to the bottom the separated fruit, and slide swiftly down to the ground again. Holding in one hand a tolerably heavy young nut, in the other a sharp cutlass, they proceed at one sure blow to open the nut, in such manner that a small orifice is made, through which the refreshing liquid contents can be conveniently quaffed. When this has been evacuated the nut is usually split in half, in which form it serves as a most nutritious food for the fowls and hogs. Despite their hospitality, there was perceptible in all of them great anxiety, and the upshot of all their conversation always resolved itself into the stereotyped questions, "What did we really require? whether we wished to purchase cocoa-nuts, and would soon be leaving?"