HONOLULU. 399 



Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold having now settled all the busi- 

 ness for which he had been despatched to Somu-somu, took his 

 departure at daylight on the 1 8th for Turtle or Vatoa Island, in 

 search of the ship Shylock, of Rochester, Massachusetts, Charles 

 Taber, master. The particulars respecting the loss of this vessel are 

 as follows. 



On the 21st of June, 1840, at 6 p. M., Turtle Island bore southeast, 

 according to their reckoning, distant thirty miles, and they were 

 steering north under all sail, with a man on the look-out; at about ten 

 o'clock p. M., the reef was discovered close aboard, and before they had 

 time to avoid it, the ship struck. Two boats were at once lowered, 

 in which the master, first mate, and sixteen hands embarked, leaving 

 the second mate and six men on board the vessel. 



These boats at twelve o'clock bore away for the Friendly Islands. 

 After two days they reached the island of Toofona, on which they 

 landed and obtained some food. The next morning they again left 

 Toofona for Vavao, stopping on their way for two or three days at 

 the Hapai Islands, where they were kindly treated by the missionaries. 

 On the ninth day they reached Vavao, the whole distance being about 

 three hundred and fifty miles. The captain, mate, and part of the 

 crew, embarked there in a missionary schooner, bound for the Feejee 

 Islands, and arrived a few days after at Somu-somu, where several 

 of them joined our squadron. 



As usual, while under the lee of the island, the Porpoise experi- 

 enced light winds and hot weather. On the 25th of August they 

 made the island of Ono, in latitude 21° S., longitude 179° W., and the 

 same day saw Turtle Island, bearing east-by-north. At daylight on 

 the 26th, Turtle Island was in sight from the deck of the Porpoise, 

 about twelve miles distant. In the afternoon they were up with it, 

 and were boarded by a canoe, with a white man, who said he was a 

 seaman belonging to the schooner Currency Lass, which vessel, on 

 hearing of the Shylock's disaster, had gone there in search of any of 

 the cargo that might have been saved by the natives. The white 

 man gave the following further particulars of the wreck. 



The eight persons who were left on the wreck, (with the exception 

 of the boy, who was drowned in falling from the main-top,) succeeded 

 in reaching the island on the jib-boom the day after the accident, (22d 

 of June,) and were kindly treated by the natives. Two or three daj^s 

 afterwards, a boat from a whale-ship, (supposed to have been the Cla- 

 rendon,) coming from the Hapai Islands, called at the island, and took 

 them off. Twenty casks of the oil, which had drifted ashore, had 



