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WE made the island of Api, then, early one morning; and, lowering the two boats, pulled in, in a heavy swell, to see if we could recruit men, and especially to try for yams and pigs. A reef extending for miles along the shore makes it by no means an easy place to land on, and just then the waves were breaking and hissing at half-tide, sometimes rising like a wall, sometimes leaving the whole reef exposed, and forming one vast line of spray.

Our boats soon attracted crowds of natives with green branches in their hands-a sign of peace; but no passage in the reef could we find. We had, indeed, one little boy on board to land there, but he had almost forgotten what part of the island he came from; so we pulled up and down in despair, not venturing to face the breakers, and by no means encouraged by a nearer inspection of the gentlemen on shore, about whose bloodthirsty and treacherous character we had heard so much. Finding that this boy did not know the navigation, we persuaded him to swim ashore, promising to wait till he had brought off a canoe to take his chest. At last he appeared mounted on a little canoe, which at every wave almost disappeared under the water, bringing his father with him, who had not forgotten to fetch a propitiatory offering in the shape of one wretched little half-starved pig. His eyes brightened with delight at the sight of the huge chest his son had brought. His pig was given to the boat's crew, and used to run about the deck with a necklace of twigs round his neck; till some older pig, wrathful at this, must have killed him in the night, as he was found dead. When the tide ebbed the natives swam off to the reef and opened trade with us, and brought us out of the water, at the side of the boat, some

lovely specimens of coral; but they distrusted us so much that not one of them could be induced to lay aside his bow and arrows, but held them in his hand while he waded along with a yam in the other; and I, not to be behindhand in courtesy, took care to let them see my revolver hanging to my wrist while I paid them in beads and fish-hooks.

These natives, like most of their neighbours, are thorough-going cannibals, and many a tale could I unfold of the white and black men they have roasted and eaten. In the midst of our bargaining we heard from our late passenger that there had been a ship stranded a few days previously, somewhat further down the coast, so we started off at once and soon descried the wreck in the distance.

The vessel was

a New Zealand schooner in search of labour for Fiji, and she lay upon the reef with her back broken. The crew, consisting of five or six whites, with some twenty islanders, had only succeeded in saving one of the sails, together with their arms and trade-box. They had formed a sort of camp on the beach, which was guarded by sentries with muskets. Round this swarmed innumerable fierce-looking Api men, each armed with his bow and bundle of poisoned arrows, and evidently only restrained by the sight of the muskets from making a rush at the trade-box, which

they knew was so full of what was to them untold wealth. They cleared out, however, on seeing us, and allowed us to approach the tent where the poor whites had been shut up for three or four days; and I found myself the object of attraction to three little black boys; who, appreciating I suppose something in my face, never left my side till I had promised to take them with me. Poor fellows! two of them never lived to get on board; decoyed away by the Api men the same night, the third with difficulty escaped to tell us how his two brothers had been knocked on the head and immediately roasted. I fancy the whole of these castaways would have shared the same fate if we had not had the good fortune to pass so near them and take them off the island. The surviving boy is now on a plantation in Queensland, and looked happy and flourishing when I last saw him.

I bought the wreck as she lay on the reef, and we had three hard days' work stripping her of all her spars, wire-rigging, cables and anchor, and every piece of iron that the natives had left; and it was a service of some danger, as the chiefs, seeing what our intentions were, surrounded the ship and insisted that she was their property; and I had to put five or six of the boat's crew in a circle round her, armed

with guns, and with orders to fire if the natives made a rush, allowing no one on board till he had laid down his club and bow. At the request of her late master we set fire to the wreck, and she was soon burning merrily, giving the Api men a bonfire at which they would have been only too glad to roast some of us; and, setting off to regain our own schooner, fired a last salute over her remains.

Talking about cannibalism reminds me of a ghastly story I heard, but for which, as it did not occur to myself, I cannot vouch. A white man living in Fiji had a boat's crew of men from Malicollo, the next island to Api, and with them he used to make long excursions all over the South Seas. One cruise, however, when he happened to have a white man with him, his blacks seemed suddenly to have taken a great fancy for learning navigation, and persisted in having the use of the compass explained to them, always asking whereabouts Malicollo was. At last they rose on the unsuspecting whites, killed the captain and turned the boat's head west, in the direction in which they knew their native island lay. They sailed so for many days, apparently taking little notice of the remaining white man. Conceive his horrible position. They had roasted his friend, and kept offering him pieces in derision to eat, or