As they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz the crew talked
together of the men of the island they had left. In his cabin sat a
great bronzed bearded man writing a letter to his own people far away
on the other side of the world. Here are the very words that he wrote
as he told the story of one of the dangers through which they had just
passed on the island:
"As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most of them
suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my head I saw a man (from
the boat they saw two) coming to me with club uplifted. I remained
sitting and held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men
jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him off.
"After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I found out that
a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot dead two months ago by a
white trader for stealing a bit of calico. The wonder was, not
that they wanted to avenge the death of their kinsman, but that
others should have prevented it. How could they possibly know that
I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they did.... The plan of
going among the people unarmed makes them regard me as a friend."
Then he says of these men who had just tried to kill him: "The people,
though constantly fighting, and cannibals and the rest of it, are to
me very attractive.
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