COMMODORE PORTER. 203. ing informed them of my former residence as a missionary at the Sandwich Islands. I cannot but hope that the presentation of the subject will not be utterly forgotten; and that it may have some influence, in connexion with the advice of Captain Finch on the same point, in preparing the way for the welcome reception and kind treatment of any who may happily be sent by those who look for the salvation of the world, to lead them in the paths of truth and righte ousness. Towards evening of the same day, Lieutenant Stribling and myself took a stroll over the ground occupied by the encampment of Commodore Porter. It is just abreast of our ship, on the eastern shore-a small plain, skirted and studded with thickets and coppices of hibiscus, with a fine sand-beach in front, and guarded on the side towards the ocean by the rocky promontory terminating in the East Sentinel, and in the rear by steep and wooded acclivities. The whole is separated from the inhabited parts of the valley by a spur of the mountain and a small round hill, jutting into the bay with a rocky base, on which was placed a breast-work and battery commanding every approach to the encampment. Not a trace of such occupation, however, is now discoverable. Commodore Porter appears to be held in very general and kind remembrance by this tribe; the elder chiefs and people often inquiring where and how he is, and whether he will never return to see them; and the younger asking, in reference to the captain, "whether this chief is Pota?" A kind of wild cucumber, which we found spread widely over the hills in the vicinity, we at first supposed to have been introduced by him, but have since learned that it is a plant indigenous to the country, and one capable of being converted into a fine pickle. About twilight, the Duchess de Berri got under weigh, with the intention of prosecuting her voyage; but the wind was light and baffling, with occasional strong puffs, and, getting too much under the lee of the eastern cliffs, she was thrown, just after dark, into a very critical situation, near a rocky point and indentation of the precipice. Her danger was announced by the firing first of musketry, and afterwards of a large gun. Three boats were immediately despatched from the Vincennes, under the command of Lieutenant Dornin, followed by the launch with a kedge and hawsers. They arrived just in time to prevent her striking: she was already under the influence of the swell, and almost upon the rocks; five minutes later, and she would have been utterly lost, and in so unpropitious a situation that the whole ship's company might have perished with her. After the effort of an hour, however, on the part of our officers and men, she was towed to a place of security, and succeeded in passing the Sentinels, and getting safely to sea. LETTER XXXI. REMOVAL OF THE VINCENNES TO THE TERRITORIES OF THE TAIPIIS. Bay of Oomi, at Nukuhiva, PARTLY in apology for any special dulness that may be discoverable under the present date, I must commence the record of the day by apprising you, my dear H, that I am sadly dispirited just at present, and most cordially weary of the vileness of the Nukuhivans. Though somewhat hardened to scenes which I am obliged to witness without the power to control, I am more and more disgusted with the barbarism and other appurtenances of heathenism, forced on us at every turn. That the Taipiis might have no reason for supposing us the friends only of the tribes at war with them VISIT TO THE TAIPHS. 205 Captain Finch determined some days since to remove the Vincennes to their waters, to evince to them our perfect neutrality, by holding similar intercourse, and bestowing the same gifts on them, that he had on the Teiis, Taioas, and Hapas; and to exert his influence there also, in bringing the present hostilities to an amicable adjustment. As mentioned in my last letter, he apprised the chiefs, on Saturday, of this design, and proposed to them to send a deputation of their principal personages by the ship, to hold a conference under his protection, with the rules of that tribe, that, if possible, peace might at once be formed. To this they readily acceded; appointing the young prince Moana, and Te Ipu, a chief warrior from the Teiis and Taioas, and Piaroro from the Hapas. Though there was no fear for the personal safety of the young prince in landing among the Taipiis, from the power of his near relatives among them, still Haapé, his guardian, made it a condition of his accompanying us, that he should go on shore only with the captain, lest he might be de tained by his friends in a kind of honourable captivity. We intended to leave Taiohae on the fourth instant; but on taking our anchors after breakfast, and attempting for an hour, with a light and baffling wind, to get out of the bay, we were obliged to return to our moorings, and wait the land-breeze of an earlier hour the next day. Accordingly, all hands were called yesterday at four o'clock in the morning; and we cleared the harbour in a short time without difficulty. Our course, for the six or eight miles intervening etween Taiohae and Oomi, being directly in the face of the trade-wind, we were obliged to beat up, and, in doing it, made two stretches into the midchannel between Nukuhiva and Uapou, twenty-five or thirty miles south of it. We had fine views of both. The outline of Uapou is altogether the most romantic, and is most singularly marked by two or three ele-› vated and wild peaks in the centre, one of which rises in the proportions of a spire, leaning much on one side, to a perfect point, at least a thousand feet above the elevation of the general range. By twelve o'clock, we had approached near "Tower Bluff;" and, in the lights and shades we then saw it, a more magnificent object of the kind can scarcely be imagined. Though evidently a mass of dark lava only, the whole is so softened by a delicate moss of green, interspersed with bushes in the crevices of the rocks, and creeping plants richly mantling its irregularities, that beauty is imparted to that which otherwise might seem an unvaried deformity; and as to the tower, as we term it, and the parapeted rocks around, were we in a country where remains of feudal power and grandeur are to be found, no one would be thought drawing heavily on his imagination, in pronouncing it, even at a short distance, the majestic ruin of some baronial castle. A half mile from the promontory, a single rock rises eight or ten feet above the water, like the shaft of a column, with a rounded top. It forms a good mark by which to enter this inlet, the most eastern of three, communicating with the ocean by a common passage three or four miles wide, sometimes called Comptroller's Bay. We passed close by it, and are told that ships have gone between it and the Bluff, but should think not without danger. We carried the wind in with us, and ran readily to our present with high hills anchorage. The bay is very narrow, on each side, and deep water to their very base. By the direction of Morrison, we ran so far in as to become uneasy as to a want of room in case of accidents to our anchor or cable, and brought up in fourteen fathoms, little satisfied with our birth. The steep hills on either side, at a distance of two or three cables' length only, are rocky, and slightly covered with grass. About a mile north of us, the SUSPICIONS REMOVED. 207 direction in which they run, they join at the water's edge in a short sand-beach, skirting a narrow valley filled with luxuriant groves. Behind this, the mountains, richly wooded to their summits, and sprinkled with cottages, rise abruptly, till lost in the clouds brushed over their tops by a fresh trade-wind. There is nothing particularly attractive, however, in the scenery thus presented, especially after having visited the wild magnificence of Taioa, and gazed for a week on the varied and picturesque beauty of the amphitheatre of Taiohae. The appearance of our ship in the harbour was evidently regarded with suspicion; few of the natives were anywhere to be seen, and none except at a distance. We were not surprised at this; nor to learn, as we since have, that it was believed we had come only for war. By established and universal usage at this group, any member of a tribe, nearly related by blood or marriage to persons in another, may, in times of war as well as of peace, pass with impunity from the territories of one to those of another, and be regarded as a friend. Acquainted with this fact, we had brought with us a native Taipii who had married a woman at Taiohae, and was residing there; and hoisting a white flag at the foremast-head, we landed him on the rocks abreast of the ship, as a messenger of peace. Morrison, the interpreter, was also despatched in a boat to the beach, to give assurance to the chief personages of our pacific intentions, and to invite them to an interview with the captain. These manifestations of good-will soon brought a canoe or two alongside, with cocoa-nuts for barter; and in the course of an hour, many men and boys swam off, and came on deck. The rain poured in torrents for two or three hours in the afternoon, but ceased in time for "the chief of the gods," the style of the Tauas, according to Morrison, accompanied by his compeer in civil life, to |