Besides the operation of _tattooing_, they compelled us to pluck the hair from different parts of the body, and to pluck our beards about every ten days, which was extremely painful; and at every successive operation the beard grew out harder and stiffer. About seventeen days after the captain and Rollins left, we saw a vessel to the windward; but the natives did not attempt to visit it. Five months afterwards another came in sight, and remained for three days near the island. At one time we could distinctly see the men on board; but we were kept on shore and closely guarded. Several canoes visited the ship, and brought back a few pieces of iron, fish-hooks, glass bottles, &c. We tried, but in vain, to escape. It seemed to us, that we were doomed to remain on that dreary spot, to wear out our remaining strength in hopeless bondage, and to submit to the control of brutal masters, whose tender mercies were cruelties. Death, in any form, would have been a relief, and often did we see moments when it would have been welcomed as the best of friends! To some of our companions it did come, though dreadful in the manner, yet as a not unwelcome alternative. About a year after we first arrived at the island, William Sedon became so reduced as to deprive us of all hopes of his recovery. He looked like a skeleton; and, at last, was so entirely exhausted by hunger, as to be unable to walk, or even to rise from the ground. He continued, however, to crawl from place to place, until all his remaining strength was nearly gone, when the inhuman monsters placed him in an old canoe, and sent him adrift on the ocean! Gladly would his unhappy shipmates have extended to him the last sad offices of friendship; that poor consolation was denied both him and us! My heart bleeds at the recollection of our separation and his melancholy fate--when we saw him anxiously turn his languid eyes towards those who were doomed still to linger on the borders of the grave! Our sighs were breathed almost in silence, and our tears were shed in vain! It may be observed here, that it is not their custom to deposit the bodies of any of their dead in the earth, except very young children. The bodies of grown people, after death, are laid in a canoe and committed to the ocean.