282 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
It must be borne in mind that Tahiti is beyond the range of the hurri- 
canes which visit the Fijian seas. These islanders having lost their friends 
went to the westward to look for them, and had a tedious return voyage. 
At a later period of my sojourn at Eimeo I heard of the arrival of some 
strange people in a canoe. I went to the settlement at which they were 
located to see them. These strangers were two men and two women, who 
having left the island in the Low Archipelago in which they dwelt, in a 
large canoe to obtain cocoa-nuts from some small uninhabited island in the 
vicinity, on their voyage back with their cargo, had all fallen asleep, drifted, 
lost their reckoning, and existing on the cocoa-nuts had in about a fortnight 
sighted Eimeo. One of the women married a Tahitian, and I think that 
the party had made up their minds to remain, and not again trust them- 
selves to the winds and waves. 
Nor is this prevailing east wind merely local. During my sojourn on 
the island of Eimeo, a Sydney vessel, a two-topsail schooner, named the 
«Sarah Ann," owned and commanded by a Capt. Dunnett, called in Taloo 
Bay. The Captain had been establishing parties for pearl shell fishing and 
cocoa-nut oil manufacture on several of the outlying islets, trading round 
elsewhere whilst these articles were being procured. On seeing me making 
preparations for starting in a whaleboat for Papeiti he cautioned me as to 
the risk I was running, telling me that just previously the oars of a boat 
belonging to one of his parties had been washed up on Tahiti, and as they 
had been lashed together, he on learning it, feeling anxious, had gone to 
Chain Island, and found that his mate left there in charge had gone away 
in a boat, and had not returned, and that he could get no trace of him 
beyond these oars at any of the islands about, and was obliged to conclude 
that the crew had perished. 
Some months subsequently, on the eve of my departure from Tahiti, I 
met on the beach this mate, a Mr. Clarke, a mere skeleton to look at. He 
narrated his wonderful escape. I accidentally fell in with the story in 
print a little time back, and give it to you condensed as an illustration of 
what I have said as to winds :— 
* The time for the return of the schooner had now expired, and being 
short of provisions I proposed with a boat’s crew to visit Hanea, an island 
about forty-five miles south-west, to learn if any vessel had called from 
Tahiti; if not, to proceed thither, a distance of about 250 miles. I got 
ready a Greenland whaleboat, and put in her 80lb. of biscuits, a small 
cooked pig, four gallons of water, and six young cocoa-nuts. On the 15th 
August, 1844, we left—four grown-up men, three youths, and myself. I 
had my dog with me and my chest. We had a nice breeze and soon sighted 
Taitea. The wind soon freshened and blew pretty stiff, At 10 p.m. I 
