fs--tattooed chiefs--and bamboo temples; sunny valleys
planted with bread-fruit trees--carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue
waters--savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols--_heathenish rites and
human sacrifices_.

Such were the strangely jumbled anticipations that haunted me during our
passage from the cruising ground. I felt an irresistible curiosity to see
those islands which the olden voyagers had so glowingly described.

The group for which we were now steering (although among the earliest of
European discoveries in the South Seas, having been first visited in the
year 1595) still continues to be tenanted by beings as strange and
barbarous as ever. The missionaries, sent on a heavenly errand, had sailed
by their lovely shores, and had abandoned them to their idols of wood and
stone. How interesting the circumstances under which they were discovered!
In the watery path of Mendanna, cruising in quest of some region of gold,
these isles had sprung up like a scene of enchantment, and for a moment
the Spaniard believed his bright dream was realized. In honour of the
Marquess de Mendoza, then viceroy of Peru--under whose auspices the
navigator sailed--he bestowed upon them the name which denoted the rank of
his patron, and gave to the world, on his return, a vague and magnificent
account of their beauty. But these islands, undisturbed for years,
relapsed into their previous obscurity; and it is only recently that
anything has been known concerning them. Once in the course of a half
century, to be sure, some adventurous rover would break in upon their
peaceful repose, and, astonished at the unusual scene, would be almost
tempted to claim the merit of a new discovery.

Of this interesting group, but little account has ever been given, if we
except the slight mention made of them in the sketches of South Sea
voyages. Cook, in his repeated circumnavigations of the globe, barely
touched at their shores; and all that we know about them is from a few
general narratives.

Within the last few years, American and English vessels engaged in the
extensive whale fisheries of the Pacific have occasionally, when short of
provisions, put into the commodious harbour which there is in one of the
islands; but a fear of the natives, founded on the recollection of the
dreadful fate which many white men have received at their hands, has
deterred their crews from intermixing with the population sufficiently to
gain any insight into