kind of noses before described on the beach, and supposing them to be ghosts, immediately killed them. At this time the shore was strewed with dead bodies, very much mutilated by the sharks; some without heads, the bowels of others torn out, and some with their legs off. The ship to which they belonged went down in deep water after getting on the reef, and nothing was saved from it. The people who escaped to shore from the ship off Paiow made peace with the chief of that place by presenting him with a large axe.

I inquired if they landed in their boats, to which he replied, "No; that part of the wreck floated on shore with them." I said that was improbable; for if so, how could they bring things with them to build a two-masted ship? He replied, that he did not well know how the accident occurred: that it was a long time ago, and suggested that further inquiry upon the subject should be dropped until his friend Nero, the chief of Davey district, came on board, who was an old man, and would state the particulars to me more satisfactorily than he could.

I produced the bells and four muleteers' rattles, with half of the brass globe, observing that if the ship was lost as he described, how could these things be saved from her, as they would not float on shore. He said that several boxes were thrown up by the sea from the wreck,

and the natives used also to dive at low water into the ship, and recover what they could from her.

Of late years few things have gone from Mannicolo to Tucopia: all things procured by me, as well on the last as this voyage, at the latter island, having been carried thither by one of its chiefs, named Thamaca, a great sailor and fighting man, having made during his life-time ten voyages to Mannicolo, from whence, in one of his excursions, he brought two of the natives to his own island. Some years ago he set sail for Anutha, or the Cherry Island, with some canoes, and was lost at sea. Since then the intercourse between Mannicolo and Tucopia has rapidly declined, and is now very limited. In Thamaca's life-time the Mannicolans behaved with much respect to all Tucopians, because they dreaded this chief; but after his death. they soon altered their behaviour, being no longer in dread of his fleets, which to the number of from five to ten, and sometimes twelve canoes, were wont to make a descent upon their

coast.

I inquired if any Tucopians were on this island at the time the ships were wrecked. He replied, Yes, there was one named Tafow, a hump-backed man, who is still living at Tucopia. That while he lived at Mannicolo it was with the aged chief who had honoured me with

his company for a short time on Monday last. Thamaca arrived here shortly after the wreck of the Frenchmen, and saw their mangled limbs lying about the beach. At this time the Tucopians were unacquainted with ships and white men, and from the Mannicolan's accounts re garded them as spirits. They had seen but one ship before, the Hunter, but had no communication with her; and the first white man with whom they had ever conversed was on board of the Elizabeth cutter, tender to the Bengal ship Hunter, in September 1813, of which cutter I was commander.

I observed the island of Mannicolo to be very mountainous on the east and north sides, with the hills rising from the sea, and completely covered with impenetrable jungles to the very summits. Where there happens to be a low spot of clear ground or plain close to the water-side, the natives build their huts.

Judging from the specimens of their vegetable productions offered to sale, the soil or climate, or both, combine to stunt them very much, their cocoa-nuts, sugar-canes, bread-fruits, &c. being of a very dwarfish size. These causes inclined me to suppose the island but thinly inhabited, in which I found myself not mistaken from the accounts of my interpreter. From him I understood that the inland parts of the country were totally uninhabited, the strongest tribe upon

the coast not being able at any time to bring more than thirty-six fighting men into the field. In their wars they neither give nor accept of quarter, carrying off the women and children of their conquered enemy, making slaves and wives of them as occasion requires.

Snakes as long as a Tucopian canoe (about twenty feet), and as thick as a man's arm, are numerous in the woods and jungles: they will boldly attack a man. The poison with which the natives tip their arrows is not a gum, but a composition made into a gummy consistence. It is manufactured from the fruit of a tree of a globular shape, pulled from the bough and the inside scraped out with a shell; it is then mixed with lime and betel-nut, also scraped as the first; the whole mass is then kneaded by the hand into the consistence of a tough gum, and in this state put upon the arrows, which are then rubbed over with a nut that gives them the red appearance. These arrows are supposed by the islanders to retain their poisonous qualities for several years. are a few fowls and pigs domesticated about the native houses, but no dogs upon the island. There are also several streams of water, where a few wild ducks resort.

There

The trade between Tucopia and the Mannicolos consists chiefly in an exchange of tappar (the cloth peculiar to the South Sea Islands)

manufactured at Tucopia, with some fine mats, for which the Mannicolos barter an inferior kind of pearl shell, shell ornaments for the arms, head, and neck, also necklaces of a shell resembling the cowry shells of the Maldives, near Ceylon, in the East-Indies, and the bows and arrows of the Mannicolos; which last, however, are not used in Tucopia, where the people are peaceably inclined, and wage no wars, either foreign or domestic. For a number of years the Tucopians have been supplied with iron, china-plates, small brass bells, glass bottles, beads, and other articles of a similar nature from the Mannicolos, who obtained them from the wrecked French ships.