112 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



you go now. You want urn long pig, eh? No catch 

 him this time. Down you go to the hold, kai bokolos 

 (" eaters of men "),' I shouted. 



' Swing round the four -pounder ! ' yelled the captain, 

 and slowly the gun-carriage came round, and the gun 

 was levelled. For a minute you might have heard a 

 pin drop on board then slowly and sullenly the Sulu- 

 how men turned and went down the hold to their bunks 

 again, amidst the derisive yells of the Oba boys. The 

 gage of battle was declined, and I breathed freely ; 

 a 'muss' was averted by the skin of our teeth." 



Captain Gambier once had the doubtful pleasure of 

 receiving a gift of a roasted black man's leg. The 

 account of the circumstances which led up to the 

 presentation is taken from his reminiscences l : "It was 

 hi the island of Tanna that I first saw real fight- 

 ing. My ship had gone up to investigate the killing 

 of a missionary, the point being not so much whether 

 he deserved martyrdom from the natives for there were 

 certainly two sides to the story as to enforce the 

 sanctity of a white life on these savage minds. So, 

 with this moral object in view, we landed a strong! 

 force, set fire to their villages, shot as many savages 

 as remained to be shot, and carried off a chief who, 

 by strategy, had fallen into our hands. Our method 

 was simple. Having ascertained from the missionaries 

 of Aneiteum that there was deadly enmity between two 

 tribes, situated at different ends of the island of Tanna, 

 we made friends with the tribe who we elected to 

 assume were innocent, for the time being, of killing 

 and eating missionaries, and, with the aid of a native 

 convert, who spoke about ten words of English, in- 

 1 See Bibliography, 9, 



