214 FLORA VITIENSIS. 
or white men. It appears that the island had just been annoyed by a party of sandal-wood traders, who 
had killed several of the natives and robbed their plantations, when, on the 29th of November, 1839, the 
good ship ‘ Camden,’ with the missionaries Williams and Harris on board, hove in sight at Dillon Bay. 
The Eromangans, unable to guess the glad tidings about to be made known to them, thought it was that 
sandal-wood party returning to repeat the offences. That very day there was to have been a great festival 
on shore, and near the beach heaps of yams and taro had been piled up for that occasion. Fearing that 
portions of them might be carried off, the natives tried to prevent the landing of the strangers; but finding 
their signs misunderstood, and no heed taken of the absence of women and children, a party, headed by 
chief Kauiau, commenced the attack. Poor Harris was the first struck down; Williams ran into the sea, 
but before able to reach the boat he too was a dead man, and his body, like that of his unfortunate com- 
panion, cooked and eaten.* In 1859 the missionary Turner visited the scene of the massacre. The chief 
who headed the attack was still alive, and was even induced to go on board the ‘John Williams,’ when 
long and silently he gazed upon the portrait of the man whom his murderous hand had made the Martyr of 
Eromanga. During an interval of twenty years the sandal-traders had obtained a firm footing on this 
notorious island, the wood being still so plentiful that one firm employed about sixty men to cut it in the 
bush. But they found the Eromangans reluctant to work, and had to import labour from Lifu, Vate, and 
other islands. This reluctance may be explained by bearing in mind that all Polynesians work more 
willingly and better abroad than at home, and also because a belief had taken hold of the mind of the 
Eromangans that a dysentery, which in 1842 carried off a third of their number, was owing to some 
hatchets obtained from a sandal-wood vessel, inducing them to throw the implements away. Another inci- 
dent may have prompted them to keep aloof from contact with these traders. In 1843, two vessels under 
British colours, the * Sophia’ and the ‘ Sultana,’ and a third, said to have carried the flag of Tahiti, manned 
by sixty Tongans, commanded by chief Maafu, and under the supreme leadership. of a Mr. Henry, an 
Englishman, arrived at Eromanga for the purpose of forcibly cutting sandal-trees. The party, armed with 
muskets, landed, and eut and embarked a quantity of the wood. For the first few days the Eromangans 
were friendly, but at the end of that time, some of their number having stolen three axes, a disturbance 
took place, when one of the supposed thieves was shot by a Tongan. The fire was returned by arrows, 
and mortally wounded a Tonguese. In consequence of this affray, Henry and his party left Eromanga, 
and proceeded to Vate, where the men were again landed, armed as before, and directed to cut sandal- 
-wood, the whites prudently remaining on board. This robbery could not but lead to evil consequences. 
Before long there was a battle with the natives, who, having no muskets, had twenty-six killed, whilst 
none of the intruders were wounded. In a subsequent storming of a fort more natives were killed, and 
the remainder retreated to an island, where they took refuge in a cave. The sandal-wood party, not 
satisfied with their triumph, pursued them, and finding that firing produced no apparent effect, they piled 
combustible material before the mouth of the cave, and setting fire to it, smoked the poor natives like rats, 
until all were suffocated. History repeats itself, for the same horrible scene here enacted by lawless savages 
was copied two or three years later by an heroic French general in Algeria. The Vateans were not long 
in the strangers’ debt, the crews of two English vessels engaged in the sandal-wood trade, the ‘ Cape 
Packet’ and the ‘ British Sovereign,’ having been massacred by them a few years afterwards. The ‘Cape 
Packet’ was betrayed into their hands by a few discontented South Sea Islanders on board, whilst the 
‘ British Sovereign’ had the misfortune to get wrecked, and its company, tormented by hunger and thirst, 
made for the shore, where all, with the exception of one Englishman and a boy, were clubbed and cooked. 
There seems to have been no provocation on the part of the strangers, and the sole cause for killing them 
appears to have been a desire for the bodies and clothes of the unfortunate men.t 
But Eromanga and Vate are not the only spots notorious for quarrels between traders and natives of 
the soil Nearly every island of the South Pacifie where the much-coveted wood is found has become the 
theatre of bloodshed and murder. In most cases it is impossible to say who is to blame. The Christian 
inissionaries, alinost invariably taking the side of the natives, lay all the blame on the traders, whilst the 
traders attribute every quarrel to the undeniably ferocious disposition of the aborigines. Both sides of 
looking upon the subject came out in bold relief at Sydney during the trial of Captain Lewis, the superin- 
tendent of a sandal-wood establishment at the Isle of Pines, who was aceused of killing a native of Mare 
and wounding others. Mare first became known as a sandal-wood island in 1841, when a whole boat’s 
crew, supposed to have belonged to the * Martha,’ of Sydney, was massaered. About 1843 the islanders 
* That veteran explorer, Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, had amply warned poor Williams of the 
treacherous nature of the natives, and even lent him, during his visit to Sydney, a statement of the 
Eromanga affray, which appeared in the ‘ Asiatic Journal’ for 1832. (See Bennett’s Letter in Seemann's 
‘Journal of Botany,’ 1864, p. 218.) : es 
t Erskine, ‘The Islands of the Western Pacific,’ pp. 143, 144, 326. London, 1853. C eur 
t The Sandal-wood of Mare may be identical with that of New Caledonia, lately described by Vieillard 
> : 
