56^ 



TRADE AL LIGATOR BONES. 



Dec. 



At the time that Mr, Clark was a prisoner among them, a 

 musket was considered to be a fair ransom for a white man ; 

 and (perhaps fortunately for him) they had then an idea that 

 the flesh of white men was not wholesome. 



They have many articles of trade, such as shells, tortoise- 

 shell, coral, spermaceti, whales' teeth, ' bicho de mar,' mats of 

 exquisite workmanship, fruit, and provisions : among the latter 

 are pigs and ' iguanas.' Excepting a great alligator, the Feejee 

 men never saw an animal on their island larger than a dog or a 

 pig. The monster just mentioned made its appearance on the 

 island Pau, the largest of the group, some years ago, to the 

 extreme consternation of the natives, who thought it was a 

 sea-god. After destroying nine people, at different times, the 

 * enormous lizard,' as they called it, was caught by a strong 

 noose passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of 

 the rope being held at a distance by fourteen men, who lay 

 concealed, while a daring old man offered himself as a bait to 

 entice the brute to run into the snare.* 



Mr. Mariner supposed that this alligator, or crocodile, had 

 made its way from the East Indies ; a curious instance of the 

 manner in which occasional migrations take place. On an island 

 in that neighbourhood, called Lotooma, Mariner heard of two 

 enormous bones, not at all like any human bones, nor resem- 

 bling those of a whale. The natives of the island have a tradi- 

 tion that they belonged to a giant, who was killed in former 

 ages by the united attack of all the population.f 



On the 16th of December indications of a westerly wind 

 appeared ; and for the next three days we were buffeted by a 

 hard gale from south-west to south-east. This was the more 

 annoying on account of the chronometer measurement, because 

 it was accompanied by a sudden change of temperature, which I 

 thought would alter their rates. During the twenty-four hours 

 previous to this southerly gale commencing, we found the cur- 

 rent setting northward, about a mile an hour ; but after the 



* A feat hardly surpassed by Mr^ Waterton. — Mariner's Tonga Islands, 

 vol. i. pp. 268, 269, 270, in Constable's Miscellany, vol. xiii. 

 t Ibid. vol. i. p. 262. 



