sland for wood and water some ten years previous. He had gone ashore
as a sovereign power armed with a musket and a bag of ammunition, and
ready if need were, to prosecute war on his own account. The country
was divided by the hostile kings of several large valleys. With one
of them, from whom he first received overtures, he formed an
alliance, and became what he now was, the military leader of the
tribe, and war-god of the entire island.

His campaigns beat Napoleon's. In one night attack, his invincible
musket, backed by the light infantry of spears and javelins,
vanquished two clans, and the next morning brought all the others to
the feet of his royal ally.

Nor was the rise of his domestic fortunes at all behind the
Corsican's: three days after landing, the exquisitely tattooed hand
of a princess was his; receiving along with the damsel as her
portion, one thousand fathoms of fine tappa, fifty double-braided
mats of split grass, four hundred hogs, ten houses in different parts
of her native valley, and the sacred protection of an express edict
of the Taboo, declaring his person inviolable for ever.

Now, this man was settled for life, perfectly satisfied with his
circumstances, and feeling no desire to return to his friends.

"Friends," indeed, he had none. He told me his history. Thrown upon
the world a foundling, his paternal origin was as much a mystery to
him as the genealogy of Odin; and, scorned by everybody, he fled the
parish workhouse when a boy, and launched upon the sea. He had
followed it for several years, a dog before the mast, and now he had
thrown it up for ever.

And for the most part, it is just this sort of men--so many of whom
are found among sailors--uncared for by a single soul, without ties,
reckless, and impatient of the restraints of civilization, who are
occasionally found quite at home upon the savage islands of the
Pacific. And, glancing at their hard lot in their own country, what
marvel at their choice?

According to the renegado, there was no other white man on the island;
and as the captain could have no reason to suppose that Hardy
intended to deceive us, he concluded that the Frenchmen were in some
way or other mistaken in what they had told us. However, when our
errand was made known to the rest of our visitors, one of them, a
fine, stalwart fellow, his face all eyes and expression, volunteered
for a cruise. All the wages he asked was a red shirt, a pair of
trousers, and a