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busy in plundering the ship. But after this was completed they turned
their attention to their captives, marshalled them together, made them
enter canoes and carried them off to a small, but fertile island. Here
they were told to occupy a deserted village, and do as they pleased, but
not to attempt to leave the island. The poor Chinamen were overjoyed,
little dreaming of what was to befal them. The island abounded with
vegetables and fruit, and the shipwrecked men found no lack of food. But
they discovered that they were prisoners--every canoe had been removed.
This at first caused them no alarm, but when at the end of a week
their jailers appeared and carried off ten of their number, they became
restless. And then almost every day, two, three or more were taken
away, and never returned. Then the poor wretches discovered that their
comrades were being killed and eaten day by day!

To escape from the island was impossible, for it was four miles from the
mainland, and they had no canoes, and the water was literally alive with
sharks. Some of them, wild with terror, built a raft out of dead timber,
and tried to put to sea. They were seen by the Rossel Islanders, pursued
and captured, and slaughtered for the cannibal ovens, which were now
never idle. Some poor creatures, who could swim, tried to cross to
another little island two miles away, but were devoured by sharks.
Without arms to defend their lives, they saw themselves decimated week
by week, for whenever the natives came to seize some of their number for
their ovens they came in force.

Six or seven months passed, and then one day the French corvette
_Phoque_ (if I am not mistaken in the name) appeared off the island. She
had been sent by the Governor of New Caledonia to ascertain if any of
the Chinamen were still on the island, or if all had escaped. Two only
survived. They were seen running along the beach to meet the boats from
the corvette, and were taken on board half-demented--all the rest had
gone into the stomach of the cannibals or the sharks.

At the present time the natives of Rossel Island are subjects of King
Edward VII., and are included in the government of the Possession of
British New Guinea; have, I believe, a resident missionary, and several
traders, and are well behaved They would cast up their eyes in pious
horror if any visitor now suggested that they had once been addicted to
"long pig ".

Ten days after passing Rossel Island, we were am