198 
CRUISE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
were seen. The missionaries report the islanders as 
being amongst the worst they have to deal with in 
the South Pacific ; those who have been labouring 
amongst them during the past few years have been 
treacherously killed and eaten. 
The remainder of the natives we had brought with 
us from Fiji were afterwards landed : some had been 
absent for three years, employed on Captain Hill’s 
cotton-plantation at Eamby, and had received as 
payment some 51 . or 61 . worth of goods. Besides 
other things, such as calico, a looking-glass, and 
small trifles, were two Tower muskets, powder, shot, 
bullets, caps, and a bullet-mould. The hatchets and 
knives were of the usual useless kind, manufactured 
expressly for the South Sea Island trade, and which 
turn at the first blow. The influence of the labour 
men in civilising their friends must be considerable. 
Men who have worked side by side on the same 
plantation are, on their return home, unlikely to 
continue the hereditary quarrels, which they must 
recognise as the cause of the desolation of their 
island. They remain at home generally but a very 
short time ; life, with plenty of good food, even 
when accompanied with compulsory labour, being 
preferable to the nearly destitute state of existence 
to which they have been reduced, in consequence 
of their family feuds having destroyed most of the 
plantations. 
We found that nothing could be done here, 
