For some time past, this extremely suspicious character had been carrying on the illicit trade in French wines and brandies, smuggled over from the men-of-war lately touching at Tahiti. In a grove near the anchorage he had a rustic shanty and arbour, where, in quiet times, when no ships were in Taloo, a stray native once in a while got boozy, and staggered home, catching at the cocoa-nut trees as he went. The captain himself lounged under a tree during the warm afternoons, pipe in mouth; thinking, perhaps, over old times, and occasionally feeling his shoulders for his lost epaulets. But, sail ho! a ship is descried coming into the bay. Soon she drops her anchor in its waters; and the next day Captain Crash entertains the sailors in his grove. And rare times they have of it:—drinking and quarrelling together as sociably as you please. Upon one of these occasions, the crew of the Leviathan made so prodigious a tumult that the natives, indignant at the insult offered their laws, plucked up a heart, and made a dash at the rioters, one hundred strong. The sailors fought like tigers; but were at last overcome, and carried before a native tribunal; which, after a mighty clamour, dismissed everybody but Captain Crash, who was asserted to be the author of the disorders. Upon this charge, then, he had been placed in confinement against the coming on of the assizes; the judge being expected to lounge along in the course of the afternoon. While waiting his Honour’s arrival, numerous additional offences were preferred against the culprit (mostly by the old women); among others was the bit of a slip in which he stood implicated along with the young lady. Thus, in Polynesia as elsewhere;—charge a man with one misdemeanour, and all his peccadilloes are raked up and assorted before him. Going to the school-house for the purpose of witnessing the trial, the din of it assailed our ears a long way off; and upon entering the building, we were almost stunned. About five hundred natives were present; each apparently having something to say and determined to say it. His Honour—a handsome, benevolent-looking old man—sat cross-legged on a little platform, seemingly resigned, with all Christian submission, to the uproar. He was an hereditary chief in this quarter of the island, and judge for life in the district of Partoowye.