sable chin with a razor made for sale or barter but never meant for shaving, much less for dry shaving! The sight was a most ludicrous one—our friend scraping away for very life in an awful funk, and the natives one after another submitting patiently to the ordeal with tears running down their cheeks, and streams of blood flowing from their lacerated chins.
By way of serving him out for having many a time cut us all out in the way of bargaining for curious clubs, &c, we pushed off again into deep water, leaving him to his fate and his barbarous employment! We did not listen to his entreaties to be taken away, till he had gone over at least a dozen chins.
During the time we stayed we were treated with the greatest kindness, and on leaving the island brought away with us two smart boys of 12 and 16 years of age for the Bishop of New Zealand. At that time his lordship used to spend the winter months in cruising amongst these islands, returning boys from his school at Auckland, and obtaining others for a year’s training in their place. By this means he had acquired the confidence of the savages, and had obtained a most extraordinary influence over them. When our interpreter explained to the ferocious-looking chiefs that we would undertake to deliver their sons and heirs to the good Bishop, they sent them at once. Their wardrobe was not a very extensive one, and they required no preparation in the way of packing, but stepped into the boat as they were, in puris naturalibus. They were soon rigged out on board, in a few weeks were taught to make their own clothes, and long before we had an opportunity of falling in with the Bishop’s schooner, had become expert sailors.
On the 1st of September we ran over to Fati, or Vate, commonly called Sandwich Island, and anchored in Havannah Harbour. One object we had in visiting this island was to return a boy, the son of a chief, whom Captain Oliver, of the Fly, had brought away to Sydney the year before. There were great rejoicings on his return, and his old father loaded us with presents of pigs, vegetables, such as yams, taro, &c, and fruits of various kinds.
On the 8th we sailed for Malicolo, and anchored in Port Sandwich for the afternoon. Several of us landed, and after inspecting their curious images in the village near the landing-place, started off into the interior along a native track, but were with difficulty allowed to pass a chief who was coming down attended by two of his harem. However, we embarked without an accident. Shortly afterwards the Bishop of New Zealand put in here, and landed with his chronometer to get a set of sights. The natives could not understand what he was after, and drove him into the sea, his lordship having to swim for his life, and spoiling his chronometer. Nothing daunted he put in here again the following year, and landed on the beach amidst the assembled natives. They must have heard something of him in the meantime, for they now received him with open arms, and carried him in procession on their shoulders to their main village.
After skirting along Espiritu Santo we arrived on the 13th at Vanikolo, one of the Queen Charlotte group, and anchored at the very place where La Perouse lost his two vessels in 1788, as was most satisfactorily ascertained by Dillon, in the Research, in 1826, who discovered, and sent to France, numerous relics of the unfortunate navigator and his ships, for which he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. We saw very little of the natives, who lived in the interior of the island. They were the first betel-nut chewers we had fallen in with. We left on the 16th, and on the 18th and 19th ran along the south side of San Christoval, in the Solomon group, and on the evening of the 21st anchored in a hitherto undiscovered harbour inside the Island of Malata, to which we gave the name of Port Adam. On landing, we found the village deserted, evidently having been abandoned in great haste. We remained here a few days, but saw nothing of the natives till we were leaving the harbour, when wo espied them making their way in their canoes from various distant points to the village near which we anchored.
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