immediately placed the body on the heated stones and covered it to a depth of several feet with green leaves and grasses. We were then led back to our prison. The fate of the mate completely unnerved us, and all the afternoon and evening yells and confusion without told us that the wild orgies of cannibalism were being enacted. Escape from a similar fate seemed impossible; but we determined to make the attempt on the occasion of our next daily walk. But before an opportunity presented itself, my two companions had been sacrificed and had followed the mate. In many ways I had contrived to keep myself lean, and, in fact, seemed almost a living skeleton, and the natives had relaxed their watchfulness to a great extent. Liberty to go about the island at will was accorded to me, and I soon began preparations for escape.” Admiral Krusenstern of the Russian Navy, who visited the _Marquesas_, gives substantial reasons pointing to the belief that cannibalism prevailed here before the arrival of any missionaries. It is related that a captive child almost famished with hunger, on begging some food of the savages received a piece of her own father’s flesh. Another visitor, whose name does not appear in his book, mentions that he saw a human head with the eyes scooped out, presented on a bread fruit leaf to the king, who held his mouth open the moment this factitious dish was offered. As the inhabitants of the lone waters of the Pacific have lately discovered the error of their ways, and ascertained that a coat of tattoo and a cotton umbrella are scarcely wardrobe sufficient to satisfy the wants of trans-pacific civilization, there should be no desire to rake up their old failings. Still there is no escaping the fact repeatedly vouched for by natives of other islands, and voyagers who have visited them, that in times of famine the men butchered their wives, children and aged parents, stewed their flesh and devoured it seemingly with no little satisfaction.