Caroline Islands.

The PALESTINE was leaking, and Packenham, tempted by the easy passage
into the beautiful lagoon, decided to run inside and discharge our
cargo of copra to get at the leak.

The island had but very few inhabitants--perhaps ten or twelve men and
double that number of women and children. No ship, they told us, had
ever entered the lagoon but Bully Hayes' brig, and that was nine years
before. There was nothing on the island to tempt a trading vessel, and
even the sperm whalers, as they lumbered lazily past from Strong's
Island to Guam, would not bother to lower a boat and "dicker" for
pearl-shell or turtle.

At the time of Hayes' visit the people were in sore straits, and on the
brink of actual starvation, for although there were fish and turtle in
plenty, they had not the strength to catch them. A few months before, a
cyclone had destroyed nearly all the coconut trees, and an epidemic
followed it, and carried off half the scanty population.

* * * * *

The jaunty sea-rover--than whom a kinder-hearted man to NATIVES never
sailed the South Seas--took pity on the survivors, especially the
youngest and prettiest girls, and gave them a passage in the famous
LEONORA to another island where food was plentiful. There they remained
for some years, till the inevitable MAL DU PAYS that is inborn to every
Polynesian and Micronesian, became too strong to be resisted; and so
one day a wandering sperm whaler brought them back again.

But in their absence strangers had come to the island. As the people
landed from the boats of the whale-ship, two brown men, a woman, and a
child, came out of one of the houses, and gazed at them. Then they fled
to the farthest end of the island and hid.

Some weeks passed before the returned islanders found out the retreat
of the strangers, who were armed with rifles, and called them to "come
out and be friends." They did so, and by some subtle treachery the two
men were killed during the night.

The woman, who was young and handsome, was spared, and, from what we
could learn, had been well treated ever since.

"Where did the strangers come from?" we asked.

That they could not tell us. But the woman had since told them that the
ship had anchored in the lagoon because she was leaking badly, and that
the captain and crew were trying to stop the leak when she began to
heel over, and they had barely time to save a few things when she sank.
In a few days the captain and crew left