28 ANNIVEESAEY ADDRESS. 



" The ^ Sandfly,' on 14tli September, 1874, was at Tapoua, or 

 Edgcombe Island of Carteret, which was surveyed by Captain 

 Moresby, and in which he discovered a very fine harbour, and 

 named it after the 'Basilisk.' The natives appeared friendly but 

 were not armed. On the 17th about thirty canoes came oft', 

 well provided with bows and poisoned arrows. The people in 

 them were friendly till dinner-time, when the deck of the 

 ' Sandfly ' was nearly cleared ; the savages then commenced 

 firing with the arrows in some of the canoes ahead of the ship, 

 which was stopped by a discharge of rifles. The commander of 

 the ' Sandfly' then left the ship to give chase in his gig, and was 

 again fired at with arrows, and after a few rounds from the rifles 

 to clear the bush, the gig went in to the shore, and towed out 

 nine canoes : boats were manned and two villages were burned, 

 and all the canoes destroyed. On the 19th, a man who could 

 speak English, and was a survivor of a vessel that had had an 

 aftYay at Yanikoro, where the captain was attacked and wounded 

 as well as himself, came oft" to the 'Sandfly' stating that their 

 boat had drifted on shore owing to the tide at Tapoua, where 

 the captain died and was buried. 



" On 20th September, the ' Sandfly' anchored at Santa Cruz. 

 The natives here came off" in great numbers, well armed with 

 bows and poisoned arrow.<«, and made an attack on the vessel. 

 This was repulsed, and two villages and several canoes were 

 destroyed by the ship." 



This account was first stated in the Sydney Herald of 11th 

 December, 1874, but in that journal of 31st October, 1874, 

 there is a memorandum of the reported massacre of the crew of 

 the " Lapwing," of Auckland, which had been attacked at the 

 island of Tafosia, one of the Santa Cruz group, stating that 

 the whole of the crew, save one Tanna man, had been killed, 

 and that the vessel had been destroyed by fire. It seems the 

 "Lapwing" (according to the captain of the "Bruce") ran 

 short of provisions, and the mate and boat's crew proceeded to. 

 the shore to obtain some, when the natives attacked the boat, 



