ELLICE’S AND KINGS MILL GROUP. 
67 
been employed as pilot and interpreter. The natives were constantly 
asking him, after their departure, why he “ did not fool the vessels 
and run them on shore, that they might plunder them.” One of the 
above vessels left two pigs, two goats, and a pair of Muscovy ducks ; 
but no sooner had the vessel left, than they killed them all, from some 
superstitious fears, and threw them into the sea, notwithstanding all 
Kirby’s remonstrances and entreaties to have them spared, and allow 
him to eat them. 
Kirby says that the natives, though not professed cannibals, some¬ 
times eat human flesh; but their food is generally fish. They do not 
eat fowls, and will not raise pigs, on account of their filth. Their 
treacle is extracted from the spathes of the cocoa-nut trees, an opera¬ 
tion which, if frequently repeated, destroys the tree. They are very 
fond of cock-fighting. 
The conduct of foreigners who visit these islands is sometimes of a 
most outrageous character. Instances of this kind are daily occur¬ 
ring, a number of which came to my knowledge; and the following 
occurrence it seems to me is of a character that ought to be made 
public, in order to bring such conduct, and the persons who are guilty 
of it, to tne notice of their own nation. 
NATIVE GIRL OF PERU ISLAND. 
Some four or five months before the Peacock’s visit, Kirby states 
that one Leasonby, master of the whale-ship Offley, of London, and 
whose mate was an American, named Lake, landed six young girls on 
this island, whom he had obtained at Peru, or Francis Island. After 
