Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1835. AUIIA TllUUO — MASSACKE. 510 own open whale boat, with a crew of five natives; two being Chain Islanders, one a native of the Gambier Islands, one from the Marquesas, and one from the ferocious set who live upon an island called Aura.* Knowing their habits, and understand- ing their language, radically the same though differing in dialect, had assisted his daring and enterprising disposition in a series of wanderings about all the islands which lie in this quarter of the Pacific. He sold me a chart, made by himself, in which, he said, every one of the Low Islands was marked, though not con-ectly.-j- From him I obtained their native names also, with the proper pronunciation. He says the natives are great talkers, and have very good memories : for hours at a time he has often listened, with the deepest interest, to their traditions, and to the terrible tales of their inhuman warfare. About the year 1800, as near as he could ascertain, a ship was cast away upon the low island Arutua :]: her crew were Europeans (meaning white men). The people of Arutua offered no violence, but the blood-thirsty natives of Aura hear- ing of the wreck, repaired to the place in a body, and massacred every man. In the year 1831, the master and mate of the unfortunate Truro, passing by Aura in a small boat, Avere invited ashore by many friendly signs. They suspected no danger, landed together, without arms, were instantly speared by the treacher- ous natives, and fell, embracing each other. § Those islands are supposed, by Middleton, to have received their eaHier inhabitants from the Marquesas; and a few, latterly, from Otaheite. By frequent intercourse, by presents, and by some slight knowledge of medicine, Middleton thought he had established * Excepting the savages of Aura the natives of Chain Island have conquered, successively, all the other islanders in their neighbourhood. On Chain Island there are more hogs and fruits than on any other low island. t Some of these data were used in adding to Admiral Krusenstern's chart. + I do not know its position. § I remarked that the heads of the Otaheitans and those few of the Chain Islanders whom I saw, were strikingly different, but truly con- formable to their respective characters.