d to us by a most extraordinary
individual, a genuine South Sea vagabond, who came alongside of us in a
whale-boat as soon as we entered the bay, and, by the aid of some
benevolent persons at the gangway, was assisted on board, for our visitor
was in that interesting stage of intoxication when a man is amiable and
helpless. Although he was utterly unable to stand erect, or to navigate
his body across the deck, he still magnanimously proffered his services to
pilot the ship to a good and secure anchorage. Our captain, however,
rather distrusted his ability in this respect, and refused to recognise
his claim to the character he assumed; but our gentleman was determined to
play his part, for, by dint of much scrambling, he succeeded in getting
into the weather-quarter boat, where he steadied himself by holding on to
a shroud, and then commenced issuing his commands with amazing volubility
and very peculiar gestures. Of course, no one obeyed his orders; but as it
was impossible to quiet him, we swept by the ships of the squadron with
this strange fellow performing his antics in full view of all the French
officers.

We afterwards learned that our eccentric friend had been a lieutenant in
the English navy, but having disgraced his flag by some criminal conduct
in one of the principal ports on the main, he had deserted his ship, and
spent many years wandering among the islands of the Pacific, until
accidentally being at Nukuheva when the French took possession of the
place, he had been appointed pilot of the harbour by the newly constituted
authorities.

As we slowly advanced up the bay, numerous canoes pushed off from the
surrounding shores, and we were soon in the midst of quite a flotilla of
them, their savage occupants struggling to get aboard of us, and jostling
one another in their ineffectual attempts. Occasionally the projecting
out-riggers of their slight shallops, running foul of one another, would
become entangled beneath the water, threatening to capsize the canoes,
when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles description. Such
strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard or
saw before. You would have thought the islanders were on the point of
flying at one another's throats, whereas they were only amicably engaged
in disentangling their boats.

Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen numbers of
cocoa-nuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing u