om aft join in the onslaught, till the savages
take fright, and in another instant our decks are clear. The guns are
always kept loaded--the captain orders them to be depressed and fired at
the canoes, towards which our late assailants are swimming. Many are
struck, and several of the canoes are knocked to pieces. The greater
number of the people swim to the shore with the greatest ease, diving
when they see the guns fired, or the levelling of the muskets. We make
sail and stand out of the harbour to the west, intending to bury our
chief mate and boatswain in deep water, out of sight of these cannibal
regions.

Truly it makes me sad to think of these two men thus suddenly cut off,
utterly unprepared to go into the presence of a holy God. They trusted
not to Him who alone could washed them clean. They were good seamen,
but they were nothing else. The captain comes on deck, as their bodies
lie near the gangway, lashed in their hammocks, with that of the other
man killed, and covered up with flags. We read a portion of the burial
service, and commit them to the deep, till "the sea shall give up her
dead."

The next island we make, sailing north, is Tutuila, one of the
Navigators', or Samoan group. The harbour we enter is Pango Pango. It
is the most curious we have seen. It runs deep into the land, and on
either side are high precipices, some a thousand feet high, with two or
three breaks, by which the waters of the harbour are approached from the
shore. The people come off to us with great confidence in their large
dug-out canoes. They are a brown race, like those of Tahiti. They are
evidently a better disposed people than those we have just left. We
have no fear about going on shore, and meet with civil treatment. Yet
they are great thieves and beggars--the greatest chiefs asking for
anything to which they take a fancy. They are also debased idolaters;
and Taro says they worship fish, and eels, and all sorts of creeping
things. They are also savage and cruel, and constantly fighting among
each other. As to their morals, they are undoubtedly superior to the
people of Tahiti, yet, from the style of their dances, we cannot argue
much in their favour.

There is much wild and beautiful scenery in the islands of this group,
and as far as we are able to judge, the climate is good. We keep as
usual on our guard, and from what we hear, not without reason, for
numerous articles of dress, and carpenters tools,