From the Spectator. CAPTAIN ERSKINE'S CRUISE AMONG THE THE scene of Captain Erskine's cruise is those groups of islands and single islets in the Western Pacific which extend from the Navigators Islands in longitude 170 degrees West to New Caledonia in 165° East, and of savages and sailors has gone on among the islands, especially among those that form the frontier lands of Australasia. The visits of ships of war to these places have hitherto been casual. Captain Erskine's was a regular cruise for the purpose of observation and justiciary objects; and seems to be the beginning of an annual series, which, efficiently carried out, will be beneficial both to knowledge and humanity. The greater groups which may rank among the most interesting visited by Captain Erskine in his voyage of and little known regions directly accessible 1849 (for he made a second in 1850), were by sea. The genius of Cook recorded their the Navigators, Friendly, Feejee, and Loyalty natural and social traits with a discriminat- Islands, New Caledonia, and some of the ing sagacity, which even now excites the ad- New Hebrides. A careful study of the works miration of those who follow in his track. of his predecessors had made him familiar Since Cook's day not much has been done to with the history and characteristics of the extend his observations, beyond Mariner's account of the Tonga or Friendly Islands. from books. The size and equipment of his peoples, so far as they could be ascertained Navigators have touched at many of the frigate, the absence of trading pursuits. places, missionaries have settled or attempted and his position as a queen's officer (for none to settle at them, and traders between Sydney are better judges of character than many of and China have frequented the most interest- these savages), gave him great advantages in ing portion of the whole the region which point of prestige; his own bearing, equally forms the easterly extreme of Australasia, con- removed from undue familiarity and from the sisting of new Caledonia, the Loyalty Islands, hauteur of the service, and, above all, his and the new Hebrides. The results, how-reasonable sense of justice, appear to have ever, have not corresponded with the apparent opportunities. From the traders, indeed, we were not likely to learn much; they were as corrupt, as bloody, and for all purposes of philosophical observation as ignorant, as the savages they visited and slaughtered. The missionaries, with some rare exceptions, were deficient in native penetration and largeness of mind, while their primary object naturally gave a color to everything they saw, and as naturally predominated in their narratives. Some of them, however, have left valuable pictures of the mental state of the natural man, though theology may be more conspicuous than philosophy. Either want of time or of taste has rendered many of the navigators less discriminating, and perhaps less impartial than might be wished. It has been reserved for Captain Erskine to exhibit the fullest and most interesting account of these islands since the great circumnavigator first described them. The object of the voyage and the change of circumstances may be noted as advantages in Captain Erskine's favor; but opportunities are useless to those who cannot use them. The cruise was one of the first of its kind; being intended as a sort of judicial circuit. Owing in part to the cupidity and treachery of the islanders, but a good deal more to the unprincipled and brutal character of whalers and other traders in these seas, the massacre Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, including the Feejees and others inhabited by the Polynesian Negro Races, in her Majesty's Ship Havannah. By John Elphinstone Erskine, Capt. R. N. With Maps and Plates. Published by Murray. made a favorable personal impression upon The opinion formed by Captain Erskine of facts of the case. able of the Feejeean chiefs, not very long before Captain Erskine's arrival went out to procure victims, as they ran short for the ceremony, and by means of a skilful ambush kidnapped fourteen women. Their cruelty, as indifferent as that of ignorant children towards animals, is horrible as described. Superstitious usage is at the bottom of much of their barbarism, though sometimes it may save life. who could not understand why we should throw away articles which appeared to him of great value, when such common utensils as those he had given to me were at hand. In spite of our efforts to keep ourselves awake, we were all heartily tired before we reached the ship at eleven o'clock. Our Feejeean friends were astonished at her size, the effect of which was inside seemed for a moment to lose their self-poscreased by the starlight, and on mounting the session, crouching under the bulwark, apparently afraid to advance further. Having been informed, in answer to their anxious inquiries, that every person in the ship had been ordered to treat them as friends, they became reassured, and descended to the cabin, where mats were prepared for their beds, and a space screened in for their occupation. Their curiosity getting the better of their fears, they proceeded on a cruise about the main deck before repairing to their mats; whence I heard them at intervals during the night discussing the wonders they had seen, and no doubt speculating on what was forthcoming on the morrow. The former Queen of Rewa, whose husband had been put to death during the war, was pointed out to us at a neighboring house; she was a half-sister to Thakombau, and had escaped the usual death awarded to widows, in consequence of there being present no chief of higher rank than herself to perform the duty of strangulation, which cannot be executed in such a case by an inferior. This woman, now of middle age and very corpulent, bore marks nevertheless of the former beauty for which she was celebrated, and which may be judged of from the likeness introduced into Captain Wilke's narrative. Evidence of the extraordinary bloodthirsty charac16th August. Captain Jenner, who slept in ter of this people's institutions met us at every one of the side-cabins, was awoke this morning step. Having pointed out to Mr. Calvert, when by the awful-looking visage of Thakombau, who on the hill, two blocks of stone which had been had begun early to gratify his curiosity by exhewn into rude pillars by apparently an Euro-ploring all the corners of the ship, gazing inpean workman, nearly overgrown with grass, he tently upon him as he lay in his cot. besought me earnestly to take no notice of them; the officers' peajackets, which had been inadadding, afterwards, that they were intended for a vertently handed from the barge into my cabin, monument or mausoleum to the memory of Ta- had afforded him and Navindi the opportunity noa's father, but that their erection, if ever it of appearing in what they evidently considered should take place, would most certainly be ac- full dress, although the heat of the morning companied by the sacrifice of at least two human caused them to look very uncomfortable, and, victims, it being considered necessary that in soon after breakfast, to lay their adopted clothworks of such a nature, or even in the construc- ing aside. tion of the house of a ruling chief, a man should be buried alive at the foot of each post, to insure the stability of the edifice. Thakombau, alluded to in the above extract, is the most powerful chief in the Feejee | Islands; a man of magnificent presence, great resolution, and natural sagacity. There are freethinkers among the upper classes even at Feejee, and Thakombau is known "frequently to deride and reprobate many points of his people's faith as mere delusions." Policy or habit has prevented him from adopting Christianity, though he tolerates the missionaries, and he continues the practice of cannibalism; in fact, it was by his orders that Navindi carried off the ladies. After receiving Captain Erskine, and committing the great impropriety (according to Feejeean ideas) of interrupting a speech, when it touched too closely on cannibalism, he accompanied his guest on board the frigate. After he had dined, the chiefs, observing some pistols in the boat, and always pleased to see the practice of arms of any description, proposed firing at a mark to pass the time. Having thrown overboard some of our empty bottles for the purpose, I had much to do to save my specimens of Feejeean pottery from Navindi, Some of In the forenoon we went to quarters, having previously laid out a target (a hammock, with the figure of a man painted on it) against the face of a conspicuous rock on the beach, at a distance from the ship of 800 yards. Thakombau was evidently in great anxiety until the firing began, although he tried to conceal it; and, when he saw the smallness of the target, expressed some incredulity as to the possibility of our striking such a mark. I furnished him with a spy-glass, and placed him on the bowsprit, where he was not incommoded by the smoke, Navindi, Tui Levuka, and one or two of the latter's followers being also present. Either head; and, our men being in beautiful practice, the first or second shot struck the figure on the scarcely one missed the rock, and a very few rounds were sufficient to knock the target to pieces, which was replaced by one or two others in quick succession. Even the short time necessary for this was too much for Thakombau's impatience, who had now worked himself up into a state of high excitement; and he begged us not to wait, pointing out, first, a man on the beach, and afterwards a canoe with several persons in her, as more worthy our expenditure of ammunition than the inauinate objects we had chosen ; evidently considering that his permission would be quite sufficient to satisfy our consciences, and surprised at our scruples. One or two shells, which burst with great precision, concluded the exhi bition, which had greatly astonished all the chiefs. Thakombau, approaching Mr. Calvert said, "This indeed makes me tremble; I feel no longer secure. Should I offend these people, they have to bring their ship to Bau, where, having found me out with their long spy-glasses, my head would fall at the first shot!" Notwithstanding these professed fears, he was most pressing in his entreaties that I would take the ship to Bau; being desirous, doubtless, of exhibiting his powerful allies to his formidable neighbors of Viti Levu. At the request of Thakombau I took him on shore to the rock against which our target had been placed, to examine the effects of the shot. Large fragments had been knocked off, and were lying on the beach; some of the shot having been broken in pieces, and others, which we dug out, having buried themselves for several feet into the earth, which filled the fissures. He inspected these with a "chuck, chuck" of astonishment; which was increased by an old man bringing, a few hours later, a 68-pound shot, which, having glanced along the top of the rock, had fallen into the ditch of the "kolo," or native village, about a mile distant by the beach, where he had been employed in digging his taro. The old fellow made no complaint, although he must have narrowly escaped with his life. in return for those received at Bau. Thakom them farewell. A parting request for a bottle of brandy was delicately hinted on the part of Navindi; which I granted on condition of its not being opened on board, where they had already been fully entertained; and we took leave, with many mute professions of friendship. On my return to the ship an hour or two afterwards, I was therefore not a little surprised at the scene which presented itself on entering the cabin. On an arm-chair, with his naked feet resting on another, sat Thakombau, in the guardman's coat; his turban, which had now been worn for three days without change, dirty and disordered; whilst a self-satisfied leer on his bold features proclaimed that the brandybottle, which stood uncorked on the table, had been too great a temptation to withstand. On the deck, at his feet, sat, each with tumbler in hand, his boon companions, Navindi and Tui Levuka, in the finest clothes they had acquired on board; the group irresistibly reminding one of that described in Rob Roy as encountered by Mr. Osbaldistone and Baillie Jarvie at the clachan of Aberfoil. I pretended to take no notice of the party; which probably hastened their departure in rather an unceremonious manner; Navindi, after corking up the remainder of the brandy, following Thakombau over the quarter of the ship into his canoe; where, seated in a chair (the only one he possesses, and tabued for his use), we saw the chief, after they had shoved off, still dressed in uniform, employed in attending the sheet t- a duty always performed by the principal personage on board, but which I should have hardly thought him in a fit state to under At dinner-time the chiefs seemed to have lost their appetites; which was explained by the fact of their having already dined in both the gun-room and the midshipmen's birth, feeling, as they told some of the officers, more at their ease among the young people than at their chief's table. They, however, behaved very well, affect-take. ing to praise our cookery and style of living; The halo of romance which hangs over and we afterwards made them several presents the Papuan Archipelago, if New Caledonia bau seemed somewhat disappointed that I had and the New Hebrides are included in the no arms or ammunition to supply him with; but naine, seems likely to be dissipated on further ample amends were made by Captain Jenner's intimacy. The scenery, as beheld from the gift of a laced scarlet coat and epaulettes, the ship or from a distance, was often bold or full uniform of an officer of the guards, which beautiful; but the soil does not appear to be exceeded in magnificence anything he had ever fertile, the climate is not healthy, and the seen before, and was put on with great satisfac-inhabitants have all the vices of the western tion. Navindi was gratified at the same time with a scarlet hunting-coat; and Tui Levuka, who had made great friends with all the officers, especially with the midshipmen, and had received from them many articles of clothing, had also a present of a few trifles allotted to him. Notwithstanding the highly polished manners of the Feejee chiefs, their strict attention to etiquette, and the high rank of Thakombau, he forgot himself before his departure, under strong temptation. Polynesians without their strength of character or the variety and advance of their social condition. This is a picture from New Caledonia: We were very civilly received by Basset and his brother; who had both visited Sydney and spoke a little English, the former sufficiently well to maintain a conversation tolerably without the aid of an interpreter. He willingly agreed to our proposal to accompany us for a few miles up the river, where he informed us he had another house, which he would be happy to After Mr. Calvert's departure I became anx-show us; and as we had not much time to spare, ious to get rid of my visitors, who seemed by no means disposed to leave me at leisure. It was intimated to them accordingly by Simpson, whom I had engaged to accompany us as pilot to Nandi and Bau, that as I was going on shore to look at some timber which our people were employed in felling (having been bought by Mr. Hannant from Tui Levuka), I was desirous of wishing we started immediately, to profit by his invitation. Although the weather was not favorable, each turn of the river discovered new beauties, neat, trimly-kept houses, standing often in very beautiful situations on its banks, with well-constructed landing-places, and a few trees placed in regular order on what appeared to be mown lawns. In one or two places I observed a human skull on the top of a pole planted in a provision- the man who was to be buried. The old man, ground; and was assured by Basset that they were the heads of friends preserved as a memento. As the chief, however, looked somewhat confused on giving me this explanation, I was induced to make further inquiry; and found they were the heads of persons, generally women, who had been caught in the act of breaking the "tabu," which, for the purpose of encouraging other cultivation, is periodically placed on the Cocoa-nuts. From all we see, it is evident that this part of the country is not generally fertile; but a degree of pains seems to be taken in its cultivation that I never expected to see among savages. The face of the hills above the river is covered with rectangular fields, surrounded by channels for irrigation, which, as far as can be seen from below, is conducted on a careful and scientific system, levels being carried from the streams, which at this season of the year afterwards flow into the river at intervals of a quarter of a mile. his father, began digging his grave, while his mother assisted her son in putting on a new tapa, and the girl (his sister) was besmearing him with vermilion and lamp-black, so as to send him decent into the invisible world, he (the victim) delivering messages that were to be taken by his sister to people then absent. His father then announced to him and the rest that the grave was completed, and asked him, in rather a surly tone, if he was not ready by this time. The mother then nosed him, and likewise the sister. He said, before I die I should like a drink of water. His father made a surly remark, and said, as he ran to fetch it in a leaf doubled up, "You have been a considerable trouble during your life, and it appears that you are going to trouble us equally at your death." The father returned with the water, which the son drank off, and then looked up into a tree covered with tough vines, saying he should prefer being strangled with a vine to being smothered in the grave. His father became excessively angry, and, spreading the mat at the bottom of the grave, told the son to die "faka tamaka" (like a man), when he stepped into the grave, which was not more than four feet deep, and lay down on his back with the whale's tooth in his hands, which were clasped across his belly. The spare sides of the mats were lapped over him so as to prevent the earth from getting to his body, and then about a foot possible. His father stamped it immediately of earth was shovelled in upon him as quickly as down solid, and called out in a loud voice, tiko, sa tiko" (You are stopping there, you are stopping there), meaning "Good by, Good by." The son answered with a very audible grunt, and then about two feet more earth were shovelled in and stamped as before by the loving father, We will quote from this part one passage and Sa tiko called out again, which was answered describing a burial alive. A young man was by another grunt, but much fainter. ailing; he had lost his appetite, and fearing to grave was then completely filled up, when, for be reproached by the Feejee beauties for be- curiosity's sake, I said myself, Sa tiko, but no ing a skeleton shame being an unendurable answer was given, although I fancied or really emotion-resolved to be buried alive. Jack-did see the earth crack a little on the top of the son tried to dissuade him from the sacrifice back to back on the middle of the grave, and, grave. The father and mother then turned in vain, and the scene now to be described having dropped some kind of leaves from their followed: Appended to Captain Erskine's narrative is an account of the Feejeeans by a seaman of the name of Jackson, who resided among them for two years. He was employed by the captain as interpreter, and at his wish wrote down in his intervals of leisure an account of his experiences among that people. Jackson appears to have been of a respectable yeoman's family in Sussex, with more education than belongs to the generality of common sailors. His narrative is curious, minute, and exhibitive of the daily life of the people. It has also an autobiographical interest, as showing the strange variety of scenes the European adventurers or deserters go through in the South Sea. A FEEJEE LIVING INTERMENT. By this time all his relations had collected round the door. His father had a kind of wooden spade to dig the grave with, his mother had a new suit of tapa, his sister some vermilion and a whale's tooth, as an introduction to the great god of Rage-Rage. He arose, took up his bed and walked, not for life but for death, his father, mother, and sister following after, with several other distant relations, whom I accompanied. I noticed that they seemed to follow him something in the same way that they follow a corpse in Europe to the grave (that is, as far as relationship and acquaintance are concerned), but, instead of lamenting, they were, if not rejoicing, acting and chatting in a very unconcerned way. At last we reached a place where several graves could be seen, and a spot was soon selected by The hands, walked away in opposite directions towards a running stream of water hard by, where they and all the rest washed themselves, and made me wash myself, and then we returned to the town, where there was a feast prepared. As soon as the feast was over (it being then dark), began the dance and uproar which are always carried on either at natural or violent deaths. All classes then give themselves up to excess, especially at unnatural deaths of this sort, and create all manner of uproar by means of large bamboos, trumpet-shells, &c., which will contribute to the general noise which is considered requisite to drive the spirit away and deter him from desiring to dwell or even hover about his late residence. THEY cannot be on the best terms with God who are always quarrelling with mankind. PART IV. CHAPTER XIII. But since her marriage she had undergone a great change-superficially at least. She Ir Lady Lee had been that exceedingly no longer showed the bright enthusiasm, the disagreeable character, a perfect pattern of a repressed hopefulness, that had characterized woman, so often met with in the pages of her of yore. Jumping too quickly, as ladies romance, so seldom, fortunately, in real life, sometimes do, at a conclusion, she had long I need hardly say these portions of her history ago settled it in her own mind that, having would never have been chronicled. She had failed to realize in her husband the hero of a vast number of charming little womanly her imagination, that ideal personage must failings would give way to pique, vanity, be an absurd nonentity, to be banished forever prejudice was liable to be influenced by all from the precincts of her thoughts. In her manner of unreasonable reasons, such as early widowhood she mourned for Sir Joseph rank high in the feminine code of logic, in a calm religious way, and took to going to though they could not stand for a moment church many times a-week, bought up all the against Archbishop Whately- was petulant, sermons that she saw advertised for publicasometimes wilful, and perhaps capable of be- tion (doing horrible violence to her taste by stowing affection without first inquiring persisting in perusing them), and betame a whether the object was deserving of it, being Lady Bountiful to the villagers. Then she quite as likely to be influenced by her taste as dropped down gently from religion to science, her judgment. So I would warn those readers and studied chemistry, geology, and botany, who, with their tastes depraved by a long though none very deeply; —shuddered over course of didactic fiction, expect to find her, the Vestiges of Creation, revered Hugh Miller, perhaps, a model for the Widows of England, and pretended to admire Doctor Paley, whose that she has none of those pernicious excel- Natural Theology she found entirely convinclences which would qualify her for the honor. ing on points of which she had never enterAny of those approved and respectable heroines tained any doubt. In fact, she knew quite as who so often refrigerate the reader with vis- much about science as, some people think, a 1ons of unattainable merit, and make him woman need or ought-enough to give her a shudder at the idea of the possibility of tak-new interest in the world she lived in, and to ing such a bundle of virtues to his bosom, would have found her full of blemishes. Dear Lady Lee! like England, with all thy faults I love thee still-neither of you are the worse for a little uncertainty of atmosphere. Yet how should I have been forced to nip and prune thee, and cocker thee up,' hadst thou been that responsible being, the heroine of a tale with a moral; but, thank Heaven! mine has none that I know of. Moral, God bless you, sir, I've none to tell! And I'm not sorry for it, either though I observe that writers, now-a-days, think so much of their moral, that, when they have not sufficient leisure or art to embody it, they tack on an essay to the beginning or end of a chapter, for fear they should miss their aim where it looks like a red elbow or horny toe protruding through the finery that clothes the rest of the design. For this reason many devoted novel-readers have begun to taste fiction of late with a mixture of longing and distrust from the same cause which makes us, for many years previous to adolescence, suspect a latent dose in every spoonful of pleasant insidious raspberry jam. Lady Lee had sorrowed sincerely for Sir Joseph. She was affectionate by nature; and the baronet had been so dotingly, so reverentially fond of her, and had displayed his fondness in so many acts of generosity and thoughtfulness, that she must have been both hard-hearted and ungrateful to have speedily forgotten him, whereas she was far from being either. enable her to talk agreeably, though superficially, on the subjects of her studies. She didn't think much for herself on these subjects-few women do, perhaps; and when they do, they had better have let it alone in nine cases out of ten (no offence, ladies!) - but she was quite capable of appreciating and appropriating the best thoughts of others. Thus she had gone on accumulating ideas and knowledge, which gave solidity to her more exclusively feminine accomplishments, and had qualified herself for being eminently companionable. There was something extremely piquant in hearing the same voice that had just charmed you with the brilliant delivery of a difficult song, or the exquisite grace of a simple one, discourse most excellent music on the Old Red Sandstone and primary formations. But shortly before the opening of our story she had abated in zeal for these matters; she had become rather indolent, and given to speculate on why she was born, and what was her business in this world, and the like improving themes, customary with dissatisfied philosophers. If I might venture to guess at the cause of this dissatisfaction, I pronounce it to be the emptiness of her heart. All sorts of loving capabilities, fit to make an inexhaustible paradise for a lover worthy of them, were running to waste, and caused her daily amusements to sound hollow to the ear of her fancy. But it must have been her own fault, you will say, when I tell you she had had lovers enough since Sir Joseph's death. There was |