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

562 TRADE ALLIGATOR HONES. DeC. O At the time that Mr. Clark was a prisoner among them, a musket was considered to be a fair ransom for a white man ; and (perhaps fortunately for him) they had then an idea that the flesh of white men was not wliolesome. They have many articles of trade, such as shells, tortoise- shell, coral, spermaceti, whales'" teeth, ' bicho de mar,' mats of exquisite workmanship, fruit, and provisions : among the latter are pigs and ' iguanas.' Excepting a great alligator, the Feejee men never saw an animal on their island larger than a dog or a pig. The monster just mentioned made its appearance on the island Pau, the largest of the group, some years ago, to the extreme consternation of the natives, who thought it was a sea-god. After destroying nine people, at different times, the ' enormous lizard,"" as they called it, was caught by a strong noose passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of the rope being held at a distance by fourteen men, who lay concealed, while a daring old man offered himself as a bait to entice the brute to run into the snare.* Mr. ]\fariner supposed that this alligator, or crocodile, had made its way from the East Indies ; a curious instance of the manner in which occasional migrations take place. On an island in that neighbourhood, called Lotooma, Mariner heard of two enormous bones, not at all like any human bones, nor resem- blina: those of a whale. The natives of the island have a tradi- tion that they belonged to a giant, who was killed in former ages by the united attack of all the population.f On the 16tli of December indications of a westerly wind appeared ; and for the next three days we were buffeted by a hard gale from south-west to south-east. This was the more annoying on account of the chronometer measurement, because it was accompanied by a sudden change of temperature, which I thought would alter their rates. During the twenty-four hours previous to this southerly gale commencing, we found the cur- rent setting northward, about a mile an hour; but after the * A feat hardly surpassed by Mr. Waterton. — Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. i. pp. 268, 269, 270, in Constable's Miscellany, vol. xiii. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 262.