SYMPTOMS OF ALARM. 297 
interior, and all the canoes were set in motion 
to carry their little possessions to some place 
of comparative safety. The most courageous 
among them advanced armed with spears to 
the shore, displaying their valour while the 
danger was yet distant. 
It is not surprising that timorous apprehen- 
sions should agitate these poor people on the 
appearance of a strange vessel. Their western 
neighbours, the inhabitants of the island of 
Ralick, and of the southern islands of the 
groups Mediuro and Arno, which are much 
more thickly peopled, sometimes attack them 
with a superior force, plunder them, destroy 
their fruit-trees, and leave them scarcely sub- 
sistence enough to preserve them from starving. 
They had indeed imbibed from the crew of the 
Rurik a favourable opinion of white people ; 
but the ship which now approached them was 
a monster in comparison of it, and they were 
excusable in supposing it manned by another 
and unknown race. 
We now reached the group Otdia, and sailed 
close under the outward reef, towards the 
Schischmaref Strait, through which I proposed 
0 5 
