One of our party volunteering to act as cook, after sufficient of these fish were procured and deprived of their shells, contrived to make us an excellent dinner--we doing justice to a chowder prepared from these creatures, beside having them raw, roasted, and in the shell. The molasses was converted into candy and handed over to the Mauriis, who, until they had disposed of it within their capacious maws, had neither eyes nor ears for anything else. Our dinner ended, we wended our way up the bay. This was a task of no little difficulty, the beach being covered with huge masses of granite, worn smooth by the percolation of water; these were to be ascended, descended, and occasionally circumnavigated, so that several hours were devoted to perambulating but a short distance. Our object was to collect specimens of the green stone, which is washed down from the mountains, and, by the continual friction of the water, assumes a circular and polished shape. This stone is used for ornamental purposes, in the decoration of their persons, by the Chinese and Mauriis--they using it for ear-rings, necklaces, and nose pendants. Half way up to the summit of the mountain that frowns above our barque, as she lies at anchor, there is a quarry of this substance, which I should venture to call serpentine, but for its extreme obtusity. I said that there was a quarry, but I have only the authority of the Mauriis for my assertion; I went to the spot, and, from observation, decided that if it had been worked, it must have been at some time beyond the recollection of any of my informants. This bay, twenty years ago, was the rendezvous of a sealing party, who successfully operated in their business, living ashore until the rainy season approached, when they boarded their crafts and sailed for home. A whaling company, also, had a try-works ashore, where many a fine jacket of blubber has been converted into oil; as these men might have, occasionally, found time hanging heavy on their hands, to them may be attributed the working of the mountain, carrying such specimens as they pleased to their homes, for gifts or sale to the various tribes along the coast. The seals becoming scarcer every year, and the increase of whale-ships rendering the capture of the fish less a matter of certainty than formerly, the bay fisheries were deserted, and ever since it has been resigned to its original inhabitants, except when some old and barnacled whale-ship touches at it, or the schooners of the Maurii run in for protection from the weather. Nothing illustrated to me the slight influence exerted by man here, more strongly, than the fact of the smaller birds (those, from their size, too insignificant for the attention of the gunner), viewing man without the slightest fear, flying around and around one, and alighting on the person, as if desirous of forming an acquaintance; having had no experience of the refinement of cruelty inherent to man, they do not fear him. I do not