370 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
they were drawn near the vessel, they quitted their 
hold, and by this means the hawser was secured. 
A breeze shortly after springing up, they steered 
away, happy to escape from the savages by whom 
they had been surrounded. 
On the present occasion we experienced a signal 
deliverance, which, though it did not at the time 
appear very remarkable, afterwards powerfully 
affected our minds. As soon as the vessel was 
cleared of the natives, and the wind was wafting 
us from their shores, I went down to the cabin, 
where Mrs. Ellis and the nurse had been sitting 
ever since their first approach to the ship; and 
when I saw our little daughter, only four months 
old, sleeping securely in her birth, I was deeply 
impressed with the providence of God, in the pre¬ 
servation of the child. During the forenoon, the 
infant had been playing unconsciously in her 
nurse’s lap upon the quarter-deck, under the 
awning, which was usually spread in fine weather, 
and she had but recently taken her to the cabin, 
when the natives came on board. Had the child 
been on deck, and had my attention been for a 
moment diverted, even though I had been stand¬ 
ing by the side of the nurse, there is every 
reason to believe that the motives which induced 
them to seize the boys on the deck, and even 
the dog in his kennel, would have prompted 
them to grasp the child in her nurse’s lap or 
arms, and to leap with her into the sea before we 
could have been aware of their design. Had 
this been the case, it is impossible to say what 
the result would have been; bloodshed might 
have followed, and we might have been obliged 
to depart from the island, leaving our child in 
their hands. From the crude food with which 
