The island had but very few inhabitants--perhaps ten or twelve men and
double that number of women and children. No ship, they told us, had
ever entered the lagoon but Bully Hayes' brig, and that was nine years
before. There was nothing on the island to tempt a trading vessel, and
even the sperm whalers, as they lumbered lazily past from Strong's
Island to Guam, would not bother to lower a boat and "dicker" for
pearl-shell or turtle.

At the time of Hayes' visit the people were in sore straits, and on the
brink of actual starvation, for although there were fish and turtle in
plenty, they had not the strength to catch them. A few months before, a
cyclone had destroyed nearly all the coconut trees, and an epidemic
followed it, and carried off half the scanty population.


* * * * *


The jaunty sea-rover--than whom a kinder-hearted man to NATIVES never
sailed the South Seas--took pity on the survivors, especially the
youngest and prettiest girls, and gave them a passage in the famous
LEONORA to another island where food was plentiful. There they remained
for some years, till the inevitable MAL DU PAYS that is inborn to every
Polynesian and Micronesian, became too strong to be resisted; and so
one day a wandering sperm whaler brought them back again.

But in their absence strangers had come to the island. As the people
landed from the boats of the whale-ship, two brown men, a woman, and a
child, came out of one of the houses, and gazed at them. Then they fled