WHALING VOYAGE* 
because I am aware that every whaler will feel excited 
by its recital, more particularly those who have heard 
it spoken of, but who have not had an opportunity of 
witnessing the scene of the massacre; and I have re- 
lated the particulars as they were related to me in the 
house in which the captain sat, where the pistols were 
seized, and at a short distance from the spot where the 
tragedy was consummated, and by an Englishman who 
lived close by at the time of its enactment. 
While I remained in this island, I saw quite enough 
to convince me that it was not a place for an Englishman 
to commit any act of insult or imprudence ; the passions 
of the inhabitants were raised to a deadly height in an 
instant,— when “ their hands were readier for the knife 
than their tongues for words of anger ,’ 5 
The oranges which grow at this place in vast abun- 
dance, are of the finest kind I ever saw, their flavour is 
exquisite, while they are also of large size and filled 
with juice. They have also growing here in large quan- 
tities, lemons, tamarinds, citrons, papaw apples, with 
cocoa-nuts, all of them of the finest quality. Persons, 
who are called by the English sailors “ toddy- cutters, 
are employed by the inhabitants of this place for ob- 
taining the juice of the cocoa-nut tree, which is drank in 
large quantities by our seamen, who find it a very agree- 
able and wholesome beverage, and which is, I have no 
doubt, one of the very best restorative drinks that can 
be made use of, when the system has become injured 
by long abstinence from vegetables during a sea- voyage, 
and by the use of salted meat. 
