ATAN.

"About a year and a half ago, and just before the time when I was to
sail for the United States to complete my preparation for the seminary,
I was induced to embark upon a voyage to the Palliser Islands, planned
by a young chief of Eimeo, named Rokoa, and a Mr Barton, an American
trader residing at the island. The object of the young chief in this
expedition, was to ascertain the fate of an elder brother, who had
sailed for Anaa, or Chain island, several months before, with the
intention of returning immediately, but who had never since been heard
from: that of Mr Barton, was to engage a number of Hao-divers, for a
pearl-fishing voyage, contemplated by him in connection with another
foreign trader. He did not himself embark with us; but his son, a young
man, two or three years my senior, accompanied us instead, to make the
necessary arrangements for engaging the divers, and also to purchase any
mother-of-pearl, pearls, and tortoise-shell, which the natives might
have to dispose of, at such places as we should visit. With a view to
the latter purpose, he was provided with a supply of trinkets and cheap
goods of various kinds, such as are used in this species of traffic. At
the Society Islands, the natives had learned the fair value of their
commodities, and would no longer exchange even their yams, bread-fruit,
and cocoa-nuts, for beads, spangles, and fragments of looking-glasses;
but among the smaller groups, lying farther to the eastward, where the
intercourse with Europeans was comparatively infrequent, these, and
similar articles, were still in great demand, the simple islanders
readily giving rich shells, and valuable pearls, in barter for them. I
accompanied the expedition, at the request of Rokoa, and with scarcely
any other object than to gratify him; though I was made the bearer of
letters, and some trifling presents to a Tahitian native missionary, who
had recently gone to Hao, to labour there. I had long known both Rokoa
and his brother, now supposed to be lost. The former was a remarkable
and interesting character. He had accompanied my uncle and myself on a
voyage to Hawaii, and visited with us the great volcano of Kilauea, on
that island, said to be by far the grandest and most wonderful in the
world, not excepting Vesuvius itself. In making the descent into the
crater, and while endeavouring to reach what is called the Black Ledge,
he saved my life at the imminent hazard of his own. It was