rent to being overturned as are
the savages. On one occasion Mr Ellis, accompanied by three ladies,
Mrs Orsmond, Mrs Barff, and his wife, with her two children and one or
two natives, were crossing a harbour in the island of Huahine. A female
servant was sitting in the forepart of the canoe with Mr Ellis's little
girl in her arms. His infant boy was at its mother's breast; and a
native, with a long light pole, was paddling or pushing the canoe along,
when a small buhoe, with a native youth sitting in it, darted out from
behind a bush that hung over the water, and before they could turn or
the youth could stop his canoe, it ran across the outrigger. This in an
instant went down, the canoe was turned bottom upwards, and the whole
party precipitated into the sea.

The sun had set soon after they started from the opposite side, and the
twilight being very short, the shades of evening had already thickened
round them, which prevented the natives on shore from seeing their
situation. The native woman, being quite at home in the water, held the
little girl up with one hand, and swam with the other towards the shore,
aiding at the same time Mrs Orsmond, who had caught hold of her long
hair, which floated on the water behind her. Mrs Barff, on rising to
the surface, caught hold of the outrigger of the canoe that had
occasioned the disaster, and calling out loudly for help, informed the
people on shore of their danger, and speedily brought them to their
assistance. Mrs Orsmond's husband, happening to be at hand at the
time, rushed down to the beach and plunged at once into the water. His
wife, on seeing him, quitted her, hold of the native woman, and grasping
her husband, would certainly have drowned both him and herself had not
the natives sprung in and rescued them.

Mahinevahine, the queen of the island, leaped into the sea and rescued
Mrs Barff; Mr Ellis caught hold of the canoe, and supported his wife
and their infant until assistance came. Thus they were all saved.

The South Sea islanders, of whose canoes we have been writing, are--some
of them at least--the fiercest savages on the face of the earth. They
wear little or no clothing, and practise cannibalism--that is,
_man-eating_--from choice. They actually prefer human flesh to any
other. Of this we are informed on most unquestionable authority.

Doubtless the canoes which we have described are much the same now as
they were a thousand years ago; so that, b