n the
side opposite to that towards which the wind blows. To heave-to is, as
I have said, to place the sails so as to prevent the ship from moving
much. As soon as this was done, two boats were lowered, and provisions
and stores of all sorts put into them. We pulled in between two rocks,
and on the beach found six men ready to welcome us. They looked a
savage set, but they gave us a hearty welcome; some almost wrung our
hands off, others nearly squeezed the breath out of our bodies, and then
they leaped about, and clapped their hands, and laughed and cried like
children. The reason was this, that, three days before, they had eaten
up the very last morsel of food they had; and as no seals had come to
the island for some days, they had had nothing but a few shell-fish to
eat. If we had not arrived, they would have been starved. They had
made up their minds that such would be their fate, when the topsails of
our ship appeared above the horizon.

They had been watching our sails all day, hoping that we should come
near, yet fearing that we might pass at a distance, and not see them.
They were too weak to help unload the boats; but when they had tasted of
a good meal, which we quickly prepared for them, they gladly lent a hand
to carry the things up to their store.

It might be supposed that, having so nearly suffered death from want of
food, they would have been eager to get away; but they did not seem to
think of that. They were contented to remain, now that they had got a
good supply of food, till their ship should call for them. They had
prepared four thousand skins, which we spent the whole of the next day
in getting on board. A more desolate spot it would be hard to find; and
yet these men were content to remain another six months or more on it,
with the chance, after all, of their ship being lost, or, for some other
cause, not coming in time for them. Two of them could read, but strange
it seemed, they had no books, and were very thankful for six or seven
volumes which we left them, one of them being a Bible.

We felt very sorry to leave the poor fellows all alone, more sorry than
they felt for themselves. Our course was now towards some islands in
the western Pacific, where we hoped to obtain sandal-wood. This
sandal-wood is used by the Chinese, in their temples, to burn as incense
before their idols; for they are great idolators. It seemed to me that
if we took them wood to burn before their idols, w