466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the wide waste of the Pacific seemed to afford the protection of isolation 

 to the little island. But the government of Louis Philippe was casting 

 covetous eyes upon the Pacific, usurpation at home having bred aggres- 

 sion abroad; and in September, 1842, the sails of another frigate. La 

 Peine Blanche, rose and shaped themselves upon that eastern horizon 

 whence in other days Wallis, and Cook, and Bougainville had come, and 

 the evil genius of Tahiti, DuPetit-Thouars, once more frowned down 

 upon the affrighted land. 



