roved to be one of our crew who had been
sent back by the doctor for something he had left. When he saw what was
taking place, holding his musket in his hand, he rushed towards the old
women, who let me go and scampered off.

"It's lucky for you, Peter, that they didn't succeed in getting you
away," he said. "They would have tattooed you all over and turned you
into a nigger and made you marry one of their girls. I'll stay by you,
for the chances are they may come back and try again to make you a
prisoner. The doctor must manage to do without his spud."

When Dr Cockle returned, though at first he began to scold the man,
when he heard why he remained he told him he was right. At all events,
had the natives carried me off it might have caused a deal of trouble to
recover me.

Sailing from the Marquesas we gradually worked our way westward towards
the Society Islands, catching a few whales, till we arrived at Totillah,
one of the Samoa group.

The scenery was magnificent, while everywhere the country was covered
with beautiful trees, among them the pandanus palm, the tree-fern, the
banyan, the bread-fruit tree, wild nutmeg, and superb bamboos. The
natives also were very well-behaved and quiet, and were always inclined
to treat us hospitably. Indeed, we might have travelled without the
slightest risk from one end of the island to the other. The good
behaviour of the inhabitants was the result of their having become
Christians owing to the indefatigable exertions of missionaries. It was
here that John Williams, the great apostle to the Pacific heathen, spent
several years. Not far off from where we lay at anchor was Leoni Bay,
the scene of the massacre of the French navigator Perouse and his
companions. While we were here two of the men we had obtained ran off.
Two others were shipped in their stead. One of them, who called himself
John Brown, as he stepped on deck seemed to me a remarkably fine fellow.
He had belonged to a whaler which had been wrecked some time before,
and he had remained behind while the rest of the crew went on to Sydney.
I immediately asked him the question which I put to everybody. "Do you
know anything of a young fellow named Jack Trawl?"

"It seems to me that I have heard of the name," he laid, "but when or
where I can't say. When did you last get news of him?"

"He was wrecked in the _Helen_, and was last seen in one of her boats
when the crews were making their escape from the