The natives seemed quite au fait in the matter of monetary transactions and exchanges.  For an English sovereign they would give you change at the rate of five dollars.  Chilian or United States’ dollars they accepted readily, but Brazilian currency they would not look at.  They were pleased with knives, beads, looking-glasses, and picture papers I had brought on shore, and we did a brisk trade.  We experienced great difficulty in explaining to them that we wanted some fresh eggs, Muriel’s especial fancy, and a luxury which we have been without for some time.  At last, by pointing to the fowls and picking up some small egg-shaped stones, we managed to procure a few, though, from the time it took to collect them, I should think the island must have been scoured in the search for them.

Most of the natives seemed puzzled to comprehend why we had visited the island at all.  ‘No sell brandy?’—­’No.’  ‘No stealy men?’—­’No.’  ‘No do what then?’ Their knowledge of English was too limited to enable us to make them understand that we were only making a voyage of circumnavigation in a yacht.

It was now time to bid farewell to our amiable hosts and their beautiful island.  As we reached the landing-place, a small schooner, which we had previously noticed in the distance, came close to the shore, and a canoe put off from the island to meet it.  We found that the vessel was bringing back from Tahiti and other places some of the inhabitants of the island, who had been away on a visit or in search of work.  The meeting of the reunited friends and relatives was in some cases quite touching.  Two women, in particular, sat and embraced each other for nearly a quarter of an hour, without moving, but with tears running down their faces.

All our gifts and purchases having been placed in the boat, and one or two of us having embarked, she was shoved out over the wooden rollers into the narrow channel, where she lay-to while the rest of the party were brought alongside, one by one, in a frail canoe—­an operation which occupied some time, during which we had leisure once more to admire the little bay I have already attempted to describe.  We asked the captain of the schooner, who spoke French, to give us a tow off to the yacht, which he willingly consented to do, chatting cheerfully all the time, but evidently fearful of approaching too close to the yacht, and positively refusing our invitation to him to come on board.  There can be little doubt that he mistrusted our intentions, and feared we might attempt to kidnap him and his crew; for the whites have, in too many cases, behaved in a most villanous manner to the inhabitants of these islands, who are, as a rule—­to which there are of course exceptions—­a kind and gentle people.  I think if the many instances of the murder of ships’ and boats’ crews could be thoroughly sifted to the bottom, it would be found that most of them were acts of reprisal and revenge for brutal atrocities committed on the defenceless