The schooner answering to this canine appellation was a rakish, fast-sailing craft of two hundred tons burden, fitted out expressly for the Pacific trade. She carried four small carronades and a long nine-pounder, a sufficiency of small arms, and a smart crew of sixteen hands. Boarding-nettings she had, too, ready to be triced up in case of need; and altogether she had no occasion to dread any enemy she was at all likely to meet. Her captain was an Englishman born, frank and fearless, and a thorough sailor. Dr Coulter represents him as a kind-hearted and humane man, desirous to trade fairly and amicably with the savages, and not, after the fashion of many desperado skippers in those latitudes, to clench his bargains by blows and bloodshed. This admitted, it must be confessed that the captain was unfortunate; for during the time Dr Coulter sailed with him, we find him continually at loggerheads with the natives. For the most part, however, the strife was brought on by the treachery and robber-like propensities of the latter, who, whilst trading with their European customers, seldom neglect an opportunity of boarding their ships and cutting their throats. As soon as a vessel comes to anchor they surround it with their canoes, and show great anxiety to get on board, especially the women, whom many vessels admit, but whom Captain Trainer managed to keep off by tabooing his ship. The vice and immorality prevalent in most of the Pacific Islands is carried to a frightful pitch, doubtless greatly encouraged by the example of the reckless and dissolute mariners. Any stimulus of that kind was unnecessary to barbarians originally cruel, treacherous, and licentious in a very high degree. Cannibalism is prevalent amongst them. At Drummond's Island, one of the Kingsmill group, the first land where the Hound made any stay after leaving St Francisco, Dr Coulter had abundant proof of this. Except upon the coast, where the disgust shown by Europeans had rendered them ashamed of it, or at least anxious to conceal it, the natives did not deny the practice. Some of the men wore necklaces composed of the bones of human feet and hands, which clattered at each motion of the body. And other human bones were to be seen in their houses. They eat only strangers and enemies taken in battle; and as the occasional cutting off of a boats' crew or straggling watering party from a European ship is insufficient to keep their larders supplied, they get up constant wars with the natives of other islands. Amongst themselves, too, they are very quarrelsome. Dr Coulter, when at Drummond's Island, was present at a grand council, where, after a certain amount of singing, stamping, and speech-making, the warriors came from words to blows, and one of them was killed by a spear-thrust. To satisfy the honour and appease the wrath of his followers and partisans, a peace-offering was necessary. It consisted of six fighting cocks, with which and with the corpse of their chief the warriors