attempt to describe.



CHAPTER THREE

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LATE OPERATIONS OF THE FRENCH AT THE
MARQUESAS--PRUDENT CONDUCT OF THE ADMIRAL--SENSATION PRODUCED BY
THE ARRIVAL OF THE STRANGERS--THE FIRST HORSE SEEN BY THE
ISLANDERS--REFLECTIONS--MISERABLE SUBTERFUGE OF THE
FRENCH--DIGRESSION CONCERNING TAHITI--SEIZURE OF THE ISLAND BY
THE ADMIRAL--SPIRITED CONDUCT OF AN ENGLISH LADY

IT was in the summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands; the
French had then held possession of them for several weeks.
During this time they had visited some of the principal places in
the group, and had disembarked at various points about five
hundred troops. These were employed in constructing works of
defence, and otherwise providing against the attacks of the
natives, who at any moment might be expected to break out in open
hostility. The islanders looked upon the people who made this
cavalier appropriation of their shores with mingled feelings of
fear and detestation. They cordially hated them; but the
impulses of their resentment were neutralized by their dread of
the floating batteries, which lay with their fatal tubes
ostentatiously pointed, not at fortifications and redoubts, but
at a handful of bamboo sheds, sheltered in a grove of cocoanuts!
A valiant warrior doubtless, but a prudent one too, was this same
Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars. Four heavy, doublebanked frigates
and three corvettes to frighten a parcel of naked heathen into