262 TYE AND SUALIB. 
dropped, her sails remaining up, as a signal to the boats of our position. 
We were then about five miles east of Malolo. I soon landed, with 
Mr. Eld, and became engaged in our observations. In the afternoon, I 
was congratulating myself that I had now finished my last station of 
the survey, and that my meridian distances and latitudes were all 
complete. We were putting up our instruments to go on board, when 
it was reported to me that the three boats were in sight, coming down 
before the breeze. So unusual an occurrence at once made me sus- 
pect that some accident had occurred; and on the first sight I got of 
them, I found that their colours were half-mast and union down. I 
need not describe the dread that came over me. We reached the 
tender only a few moments before them, and when they arrived, I 
learned that a horrid massacre had but a short hour before taken 
place, and saw the mutilated and bleeding bodies of Lieutenant Joseph 
A. Underwood and my nephew, Midshipman Wilkes Henry. 
The boats were taken in tow, when we stood for Malolo, and as the 
night closed in, anchored in its eastern bay. 
FEEJEE ARMS. 
