After the departure of the captain and Rollins, we were treated with much greater severity than we had been before. Generally we were aroused from our broken slumbers about sunrise, and compelled to go to work; we were usually employed in cultivating a species of vegetable somewhat resembling the yam, and called by them "_korei_." This root is raised in beds of mud, which are prepared by digging out the sand, and filling the place with mould. The whole of this labor was performed with the hands. We were compelled day after day to stand in the mud from morning till night, and to turn up the mud with our hands. Frequently we were required to do this without receiving a morsel of food till about noon, and sometimes we were left without any thing to eat till night. At best we could get no more than a small piece of cocoa-nut, hardly a common sized mouthful, at a time, and if, either from exhaustion or any other cause, we neglected to perform the required amount of labor, our pittance of food was withheld altogether. From this plain and unexaggerated account it will be seen, that our condition at best was bad enough; but a misfortune befell us which rendered it still worse. About four months from the time of our landing on that dreary spot, there was a violent storm, which came very near sweeping away the whole of the means of support which remained for the miserable inhabitants. The wind blew down many of the best cocoa trees, and materially injured the fruit on such as were left standing. Besides this, the low places in which they raised the root, by them called "_korei_," were mostly filled with sand, and famine stared us all in the face. They attributed this misfortune to the anger of their god, and did not fail to use such means as they thought best calculated to appease him; and the calamity greatly added to our sufferings. Besides subjecting us to still more severe deprivations, we were compelled (though hardly able to drag our limbs from place to place) to labor in repairing the damage done by the storm. We were employed for months in carrying in our arms and on our shoulders pieces of the coral rock, in order to form a sort of seawall to prevent the waves from washing away the trees; and this drudgery, considering that we were naked, under a burning sun, and reduced to nothing but skin and bones, was too severe to admit of any thing like an adequate description. Our flesh, or, to speak more properly, our skin--for flesh we had none--was frequently so torn by the sharp corners of the rock, and scorched by the sun, as to resemble more that of the rhinoceros than of human beings. CHAPTER IX.