THE TONGA ISLANDS.

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began by about two hundred men ; the unfor-tunate poor man, who had run up the beach,-was knocked down, and the stones flew like ashower of shot. Many Indians got hold of thestern rope, and were near hauling us on shore,and would certainly have done it, if I had nothad a knife in my pocket, with which I cut therope. We then hauled off to the grapnel,every one being more or less hurt. At thistime I saw five of the natives about the poorman they had killed, and two of them werebeating him about the head with stones in theirhands.

“We had no time to reflect, before, to mysurprise, they filled their canoes with stones,and twelve men came off after us to renew theattack, which they did so effectually as nearlyto disable all of us. Our grapnel was foul, butProvidence here assisted us j the fluke broke,and we got to our oars and pulled to sea. They,however, could paddle round us, so that wewere obliged to sustain the attack withoutbeing able to return it, except with such stonesas lodged in the boat, and in this I found we-were very inferior to them. We could notclose, because our boat was lumbered andheavy, and that they knew very well: I thereforeadopted the expedient of throwing overboardsome clothes, which they lost time in picking