ENEMIES 183 



the most lavish in bestowing praises on me and showing gratitude 

 to their Creator for my preservation, would but a very short 

 time before this have swung me at the yard-arm with pleasure." 



To reach Oahu, or Honolulu as we call it now, whither they 

 laid their course, took fifty days, and Captain Jones was severely 

 handicapped, for he took upon himself the care of the wounded. 

 Of course he set to work immediately, but, even so, one man 

 nearly bled to death before they succeeded in stopping the flow: 

 his wound was in size the least of all, but it had severed a branch 

 of the jugular vein. Captain Jones was convinced that he 

 ought to amputate Lewis's leg, but Lewis insisted on waiting 

 until they reached a port where they could find a surgeon. It 

 was nearly morning when the young captain had finished sewing 

 up cuts from three inches to a foot long, and part of the time 

 he worked alone *' owing to my assistants being unaccustomed 

 to such scenes. It was impossible for them to remain with me 

 more than a few minutes before it was necessary for them to seek 

 fresh air." 



Having committed the bodies of Captain Coffin and Mr. 

 Gardner to the sea, and having appointed as officers two boat- 

 steerers, Captain Jones left the fatal little atoll far astern. 

 During the voyage they sighted the Elmore Group of islands, 

 whence natives came out in canoes to board the ship and were 

 enraged at being warned off, and the Mosquito group — each 

 group lay on its single coral bank — the Rodick Chain, and the 

 Piscadores. 



That the Awashonks anchored safely in the harbour of Oahu 

 on November 25th is testimony to the skill of her young captain 

 in navigating dangerous seas, and I say it in spite of the want of 

 confidence his men showed in his ability as a navigator. As I 

 write, I have before me a chart that was used during a voyage to 

 Tahiti in 1836, and it is a graphic witness to the hazy knowledge 

 of the Southern Pacific Ocean that prevailed far into the 19th 

 Century. The old sailor who plotted his course day by day 

 across that faded sheet, with ink which time has turned an al- 

 most invisible yellow, made his way past shoals of doubtful 

 extent and location, and, as did so many whalemen of the 



