ited, but still saw nothing of my shipmates; at
last I began to have some uncomfortable feelings about the matter;
shouldering my axe, I made my way down to the beach. I need not tell
you, sir, how I felt when I could nowhere find the boat, and saw the
schooner standing away to the southward, for the breeze had again sprung
up. I shouted and shrieked, but she was too far off for those on board
either to see or hear me, and I then felt sure that the skipper had left
me behind on purpose, and had probably told his crew that I had been
knocked on the head by the savages, or had met with some other fate. I
was dancing about and shouting out, and tearing my hair with rage at
being so treated, when, turning round, I saw standing close to me a
dozen black fellows. They were all staring at me, wondering what I was
about. I was too full of rage to feel frightened, and so, forgetting
that they couldn't understand me, I began to tell them how I had been
treated. They jabbered away in return; and I shouted louder and louder,
thinking to make them understand what had happened; while, holding my
axe in my hand, which I flourished in the air, I leaped backwards and
forwards as if I was a madman--in truth I felt very like one.

"At last one of the blacks, who seemed to be a chief by the big rings he
wore in his nose and ears, and the long feather stuck on the top of his
head, came forward, waving a green bough, and then, putting out his
hand, took mine, which he rubbed on his flat nose. It was a sign that
he wished to be friends; and by this time, as I had begun to get a
little cool, I saw that it would be wise to make the best of a bad
matter; so I took his hand and rubbed it on my nose, and behaved to all
the party in the same manner. From that time the blacks treated me with
great respect. Whether they had seen any other white man before that I
cannot tell; but at all events they saw that I was superior to
themselves; and maybe they took me for a prophet or a great
medicine-man, or something of that sort. The chief had fixed his eyes
on my axe, but I gave him to understand that I would not part with it;
however, wishing to please him, I took off my jacket, and made him put
it on, which pleased him amazingly, and bound him to me as a friend. It
is my belief, from what I saw of them afterwards, that if they had found
me sitting down and bemoaning my hard fate, they would have knocked me
on the head and cooked me before the d