Start for the Volcano. 173 
went down to attend to him. For some days he seemed to be 
in a fair way of recovery, but then, quite unexpectedly, he took 
lockjaw, and shortly afterwards died. It was sad to see a young 
man like that dying alone, on a heathen island, far from his 
friends and relatives, with no one to care for him except the 
kind-hearted missionary, near whose station the accident hap- 
pened to occur. 
It is a lonely miserable lifethat which many of these traderslead. 
They are continually shooting one another, or shooting them- 
selves. Within a few days of the death of young Dana, I heard 
of two other mishaps on this island: in one case, a man—said 
to be one of the “ Carl” brig crew—was accidentally shot by 
another with a revolver ; and in the other, a man blew himself 
and another up, with gunpowder. They are very careless in 
the use of firearms, and I am afraid that, in many cases, gin has 
mainly to do with the accidents which occur. 
The principal event which occurred during my stay here, was 
the visit to the volcano. 
The day fixed for the trip arrived, and ‘proved suitable in 
every respect. Breakfast that morning had little attraction for 
me, and I looked with some disdain on the provisions which 
were getting packed up in a basket for our consumption on the 
way. In fact, I was somewhat excited. Was I not going to 
gaze down the gullet of alive volcano? Was I not going to 
stand under a shower of red hot lava, with the chance of being 
entombed? Under such circumstances, who could think of 
such a sublunary matter as grub. Fortunately, however, for all 
parties, the commissariat was not in my charge, and it was duly 
looked to. 
Mr. Neilson and myself, with several natives, composed the 
party ; and we made a start about nine o’clock in the morning. 
After walking along a tolerably even path for an hour and a 
half, we arrived at a native village, and found the villagers in a 
