islands!'
said the mate.

"`No, no, no,' answered the young native, with a grave look. `Such
things were, but they were very bad; we have learned better now.'

"On hearing this, the mate came away, abusing the missionaries for
having taught the natives such things. It is fair to say, however,
that, as he was leaving the beach to come on board, a number of natives
appeared with baskets of cooked vegetables and fruits, enough for the
dinner of the whole crew. All the families near had given up some from
their own store. I was in a hurry to be off, and sent on shore in the
evening, offering to pay double for what we wanted; but the people were
still obstinate.

"`To-morrow morning we will trade gladly,' was the answer.

"From every cottage came the sound of prayer, or voices singing hymns or
psalms. Certainly these people, little better than savages as they are,
do keep the Sunday very strictly. I never saw it kept like that
elsewhere. Some people who care about those things might say that they
put us to shame.

"The next morning, when we stood in at daybreak, the vessel was soon
surrounded by canoes, full of all the provisions we wanted; and we were
told that, if we required, men would be ready to help us fill our
water-casks. Still, I don't like to be put out as we have been, and I
shall go when next we want fresh provisions to one of the islands where
things are carried on in the old-fashioned way."

Captain Judson had come on board to get some lime-juice, the best thing
to prevent scurvy. He said that he had bought a good supply of what was
called lime-juice; but, when the surgeon examined it, which he did when,
in spite of the men using it, the scurvy appeared among them, he found
that it was some common acid, of no use whatever. How horribly wicked
were the manufacturers who could thus, in their greed for grain,
knowingly destroy the health and lives of seamen who depended on their
useless mixtures for preserving them from one of the most terrible
maladies to which those who make long voyages are subject! Whether or
not the owners of the Grand Turk had paid less for this mixture than
they would have done for good lime-juice is difficult to say; but it
might certainly have cost the whole crew their lives, and it certainly
cost them the loss of some hundreds of pounds while the ship was sailing
away to procure vegetables, with a third of her crew on the sick-list,
instead of catching whales.

Captai