So soon as Owhyhee Island was in sight, Marchand wisely decided to conduct all his trade on board. He obtained pigs, fowls, cocoa-nuts, bananas, and various fruits from this island, and was delighted at finding amongst them pumpkins and watermelons, no doubt from the seeds sown by Captain Cook. Four days were passed in trade, then the route to China was resumed, and in due course Tinian Island, one of the Mariannas, was sighted. Commodore Anson's glowing description of this island will be recalled. Byron, as we have already mentioned, was quite astonished at the different aspect it presented to him. But the fact is, some fifty years earlier Tinian was flourishing and counted thirty thousand inhabitants, and the victorious Spaniards had since introduced an epidemic which had decimated the population, whilst the miserable survivors had been torn from their country and sent to Guaham as slaves. Marchand did not land at Tinian--which according to the accounts of every navigator who had visited it since Byron, had relapsed into barbarism--but made for the southern extremity of Formosa. Reaching Macao upon the 28th of November, he heard news which disconcerted him. The Chinese Government had just passed a law prohibiting the introduction of furs into the ports of the empire under most severe penalties. Was this the result of some unknown clause in a secret treaty with Russia, or was it due to the cupidity and avarice of a few mandarins? In either case it was impossible to infringe the law. Marchand wrote to MM. Baux's agents in Canton; but the same prohibition held good in that town also, and it was useless to think of reaching Whampoa, where he would have had to pay duty, amounting to at least six thousand piastres. The only course open to Marchand was to go to Mauritius, and thence return to Marseilles. It is unnecessary to describe the return voyage, which was accomplished without any unusual incidents. What were the scientific results of this expedition? Nothing to speak of, from a geographical point of view. They may be enumerated as follows:--The discovery of that portion of the Marquesas Islands which had escaped the notice of Captain Cook and his predecessors, a more thorough examination of the country, and the manners and customs of the natives of Santa Christina in the same group, of Tchinkitane and Cloak Bays, and of Queen Charlotte's Islands off the American coast. Small as these results might appear for an official expedition, they were not unsatisfactory for a vessel equipped by private enterprise; moreover, Captain Marchand and his colleagues had turned new discoveries to such good account, and studied the narratives of earlier voyagers so carefully, that they carried out the plan of their expedition more precisely than many experienced navigators might have done. And, in their turn, they rendered valuable assistance to their successors by the accuracy of their charts and drawings.