232 VOYAGE TO THE 



weighed from tliree to four hundred-weight each, and 

 were so inactive that, had there heen a sufficient num- 

 her of men, the whoh^ school mi<rht have been turned. 



Wittrein and his companion, the men whom we 

 found upon the island, were living on the south side 

 of the harbour, in a house built from the plank of the 

 William, upon a substantial foundation of copper 

 bolts, procured from the wreck of the ship by burn- 

 ing the timbers. They had a number of fine fat hogs, 

 a well- stocked pigeon-house, and several gardens, in 

 which there \vere growing pumpkins, water-melons, 

 potatoes, sweet potatoes, and fricoli beans ; and they 

 had planted forty cocoa-nuts in other parts of the bay. 

 In such an establishment Wittrein found hiniself very 

 comfortable, and contemplated getting a wife from the 

 Sandwich Islands ; but I am sorry to find that he soon 

 relinquished the idea, and that there is now no person 

 to take care of the garden, which by due management 

 might have become extremely useful to Vv'hale ships, 

 the crews of which are often afflicted with scurvy by 

 their arrival at this part of their voyage. The pigs, 

 I have since learned, have become wild and numerous? 

 and will in a short time destroy all the roots, if not 

 the cabbage-trees, which at the time of our visit were 

 in abundance, and, besides being a delicate vegetable, 

 were no doubt an excellent antiscorbutic. 



We learned from Wittrein, wdio had resided eight 

 months upon the island, that in January of 1826 it 

 had been visited by a tremendous storm, and an earth- 

 quake which shook the island so violently, and the 

 water at the same time rose so high, that he and his 

 companion, thinking the island about to be swallowed 

 up by the sea, fled to the hills for safety. This gale, 

 which resembled the typhoons in the China sea, began 



