1835. 



NAVIGATORS- — FRIENDLY — FEEJEE. 



559 



Before arriving at New Zealand I will add a very brief 

 remark or two about the Navigators, the Friendly, and the 

 Feejee Islands. At the first mentioned, where De Langle 

 and Lamanon were massacred, there is now a prosperous 

 mission established by the exertions of the London Missionary 

 Society, and I hear that a large proportion of the islanders 

 are no longer blood-thirsty savages. At the Friendly Isles 

 much opposition had been encountered, chiefly in consequence 

 of former hostilities brought on by a runaway convict, who 

 excited the natives to murder the first missionaries who went 

 there : and the prejudices then caused are scarcely yet removed. 

 Mariner''s account of the Tonga, or Friendly Islands, is consider- 

 ed by English residents at Otaheite, to be a very accurate one,* 

 and is full of interesting information. I obtained a few notices 

 of the Feejee group from the owner of a schooner that was lost 

 there; and as they are comparatively little known, my mite 

 may as well be contributed in this place to the general fund. 



The whole group of islands called Feejee, or Fidji, by Euro- 

 peans, but of which the native name is, I believe, Navihi — is 

 of very dangerous navigation : not only on account of coral 

 reefs, scarcely hidden by a few feet of water, but because the 

 natives are ferocious and treacherous cannibals. My informant-]* 

 said, that the master of his schooner J (who was long detained 

 a prisoner among them, his life being spared in hopes of ob- 

 taining a large ransom), was an unwilling participator in a 

 cannibal feast on some prisoners of war, taken in an attack 

 on a neighbouring island. That they have an idea of the supe- 

 riority of white men may be inferred from a message sent pre- 

 vious to this battle, saying, " We shall kill and eat you all— we 

 have seven white men to fight for us Although many un-- 

 fortunate seamen have fallen victims to the thoroughly savage 

 Feejee Islanders, a few whites have not only escaped death, 



• Among a variety of very curious facts mentioned by Mariner, one 

 may be noticed here, because I shall have to refer to it in a future page. 

 I mean the rat shooting practised by the chiefs as an amusement. 



t Mr. Green, of Valparaiso. 



X * The Terrible Clark, master. 



