300 THE CRUISE OF THE ^ GURAQOA: 



near the sea, of wliich there were two kinds. As to the 

 birds I saw or killed, they were the same I met witli when 

 here before. 



We learnt from Mr. Henry that a vessel, whicli had 

 arrived here after our departure from Tanna, had biought 

 intelligence that a terrible account was given there by the 

 natives of the action of the ' Curacoa,' and its effects upon 

 them. We heard, too, that the natives had found an 

 unexploded shell on the ground in the bush with the brass 

 percussion fuse in it ; that they all, at least a good many, 

 sat roimd it, and that one of them then commenced 

 hammering away at tlie fi.se with a stone, when the shell 

 exploded, and killed six or seven of them. It is easy to 

 conceive how horror-stricken the survivors must have been 

 when they looked round and saw their shattered and 

 woimded friends. 



The Missionary of the island came to see the Commodore, 

 and made an exact report as to the proceedings of the two 

 hostile parties. This Missionary, about thirty years of 

 age, tall, thin, rather well-looking, with a long beard of a 

 line reddish-brown, was unmarried, and is said to have been 

 by occupation a fisherman on Prince Edward's Island. He 

 was a cold austere man, and so serious that it was said of 

 him that not only did he never laugh, but that he even 

 regarded laughter as a sin. His report to the Commodore 

 may be summed u[) thus: ' Warres-Darke,' the friendly 

 chief, the first to encourage and solicit the landing of white 

 men, the only one to whom the Missionary can look for any 



