124 Letter VI, 
—— 
On reaching Mau, we had some difficulty in getting an 
anchorage, as there are plenty of reefs about, and the charts 
give no information regarding this island. After dodging 
about a little, the anchor was at last let go in twenty fathoms 
water on a rocky bottom. 
Mau is simply a range of mountains about eight miles long, 
rising from the plain of the ocean. There are several hundred 
inhabitants on it, who speak a dialect of the Efatese language. 
They are a fierce and treacherous people. Not long ago, a 
party of them were in a vessel as crew, and rising together 
they murdered the white crew, obliged the mate to navigate the 
vessel to Mau, and there murdered him also, and broke up the 
vessel. 
A party of us went ashore and visited a village of these lively 
cannibals, to confer with a friendly chief about the sale of some 
land for mission purposes, which piece of business was eventu- 
ally performed to the satisfaction of both parties. I noticed 
that many of them looked at us very suspiciously, and one of them, 
—a chief, a great strong fellow, sat apart with his musket, looking 
as surly as a bear, and would have nothing to say to us. He 
would probably have been much delighted to have got the op- 
portunity of making “long pig” of a few of the fattest of the 
party ; but the opportunity did not occur, for everything went: 
on smoothly. The boat, after going off to the vessel, returned 
again and brought barter for yams. It was very exciting work, 
for, as soon as the boat touched the shore, crowds of men and 
women came round it with their vegetables, and yelled and 
splashed about till they got what they wanted. The crowd gradu- 
ally increased, and far along the beach strings of men and women 
could be seen coming with yams enough to load the vessel ; but 
having got half-a-boat-load, and having had some caligo stolen in 
the scrimmage, the second mate, who was in charge, thought it high 
time to be off. So away we went, leaving scores of disap- 
