I ■
searching on the way for certain reefs and banks of doubtful
existence, which it was desirable on proper evidence to expunge
from the charts.
During the traverses which we made in sounding for these, I
had a good opportunity of plying the tow-net. Among the forms
thus obtained were a minute conferva, a brilliantly phosphorescent
pyrosoma, measuring three inches in length, and a small shell-less
pteropod, the Eurybia gaudichaudi. A specimen of the latter,
which I examined in a glass, trough, measured one-twelfth of an
inch across the body. After giving it about half-an-hour’s rest,
it protruded its epipodia and tentacles, and commenced to swim
about vigorously. The caudal portion of the body was furnished
with cilia, and the digestive organs presented the appearance of
a dark-red opaque mass, surrounded by a transparent envelope
of a gelatinous consistency, whose surface exhibited a reticulated
structure.
Tongatabu, Friendly Islands, Zth to i8tk o f November.— The
credit of discovering the Tonga Islands rests with Tasman, who
saw them on the 20th of January, 1643, and subsequently
anchored his ship on the north-west side of the large island,
dongatabu. Cook saw the islands during his second voyage in
October 1773, and on his third voyage in 1777 he made a stay
of three months at the group, for more than a month of which
time he was anchored at Tongatabu, the principal and most
southward island of the group. The islands were subsequently
visited by D’Entrecasteau, Maurelle (1781), Lieutenant Bligh
of the Bounty, Captain Edwards of the Pandora (i 791), and other
explorers of the eighteenth century.
In the month of November 1806, an English privateer, the
Port-au-Prince, arrived at Lifonga, one of the Hapai Isllnds,
where the ship was seized by the natives, and most of the crew
massacred. Among the few whose lives were spared was a young
man named Mariner, who acquired the friendship of the chief,
Finow, and lived peacefully with the natives for the space of
four years, accumulating during that time a vast amount of
information concerning their manners and habits. Mariner’s
narrative was subsequently published in a book written by Dr.
John Martin, which is still regarded as the standard work on
the Tonga Islands.
The Wesleyan missionaries established themselves here in the
year 1822, and were well received ; and some years subsequently
a French Roman Catholic mission was also successfully established.
At the time of our visit the entire population of the Tonga
Islands, including Tongatabu, Hapai, and Vavau, amounted to
25,000, while that of Tongatabu alone was 12,000. C f the latter
number, 8,000 belonged to the Wesleyan, and 4,000 to the
Catholic, Church.
We anchored in the harbour of Tongatabu, off the town of
Nukualofa, on the 8th of November, at about midday. The
anchorage looked very bare indeed, there being only one vessel
beside ours, a merchant barque belonging to Godeffroy and Co., of
Hamburg, the well-known South Sea Island traders.
The most striking objects on shore, as viewed from our position
in the anchorage, were the Wesleyan Church— an old dilapidated
wooden building crowning the summit of a round-topped hill,
about sixty feet high, and said to be the highest point on the
island— and the king’s palace, a very neat-looking villa-edifice
abounding in plate-glass windows, and surrounded by a low wall,
in which remained two breaches, intended for the reception of
massive iron gates, which, through a series of untoward circum-
cumstances, are not likely to be ever placed in position. It
appears that some time ago the king gave a carte blanche order
for two pairs of gates to be sent out from England, and when,
after a long series of delays, owing to mistakes in the shipping
arrangements, they at length reached Tongatabu, he was rather
unpleasantly surprised to find that the excessive charges for
freightage had run up the entire cost to the sum of £800. They
were then found to be so large and massive as to be quite unsuited
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