300 THE CRUISE OF THE ' GURAQOA: 



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

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

 here before. 



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

 arrived here after our departure from Tanna, had brought 

 intelligence that a terrible account was given there by the 

 natives of the action of the ' Ciu'a^oa,' and its effects upon 

 them. We lieard, 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 round it, and that one of them then commenced 

 hammering away at the laise 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 

 wounded 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 

 fine reddish-brown, was unmarried, and is said to liave 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 up 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 



