These leaves are about four feet broad, and can be easily held, like fans.

One of them is large enough for two persons.
But if the natives dread the rain, they have no fear of the heat.
It is said that they run no risk from the rays of the sun, being protected by the thickness of their skulls and the fat beneath.
I was much struck by the peculiarity of some of the waggons, which consisted of wooden two-wheeled cars, roofed with palm leaves stretching out about four feet, before and behind, beyond the body of the car.

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.