We left Suva on October 13th, and sailed for Tongatabu, searching on the way for certain reefs and banks of doubtful existence, which it was desirable on proper evidence to expunge from the charts.
During the traverses which we made in sounding for these, I had a good opportunity of plying the tow-net. Among the forms thus obtained were a minute conferva, a brilliantly phosphorescent pyrosoma, measuring three inches in length, and a small shell-less pteropod, the Eurybia gaudichaudi. A specimen of the latter, which I examined in a glass trough, measured one-twelfth of an inch across the body. After giving it about half-an-hour's rest, it protruded its epipodia and tentacles, and commenced to swim about vigorously. The caudal portion of the body was furnished with cilia, and the digestive organs presented the appearance of a dark-red opaque mass, surrounded by a transparent envelope of a gelatinous consistency, whose surface exhibited a reticulated structure.
Tongatabu, Friendly Islands, 8th to 18th of November.—The credit of discovering the Tonga Islands rests with Tasman, who saw them on the 20th of January, 1643, and subsequently anchored his ship on the north-west side of the large island, Tongatabu. Cook saw the islands during his second voyage in October 1773, and on his third voyage in 1777 he made a stay of three months at the group, for more than a month of which time he was anchored at Tongatabu, the principal and most southward island of the group. The islands were subsequently visited by D'Entrecasteaux, Maurelle (1781), Lieutenant Bligh of the Bounty, Captain Edwards of the Pandora (1791), and other explorers of the eighteenth century.
In the month of November 1806, an English privateer, the Port-au-Prince, arrived at Lifonga, one of the Hapai Islands, where the ship was seized by the natives, and most of the crew massacred. Among the few whose lives were spared was a young man named Mariner, who acquired the friendship of the chief, Finow, and lived peacefully with the natives for the space of four years, accumulating during that time a vast amount of information concerning their manners and habits. Mariner's narrative was subsequently published in a book written by Dr. John Martin, which is still regarded as the standard work on the Tonga Islands.
The Wesleyan missionaries established themselves here in the year 1822, and were well received; and some years subsequently a French Roman Catholic mission was also successfully established. At the time of our visit the entire population of the Tonga Islands, including Tongatabu, Hapai, and Vavau, amounted to 25,000, while that of Tongatabu alone was 12,000. Of the latter number, 8,000 belonged to the Wesleyan, and 4,000 to the Catholic, Church.
We anchored in the harbour of Tongatabu, off the town of Nukualofa, on the 8th of November, at about midday. The anchorage looked very bare indeed, there being only one vessel beside ours, a merchant barque belonging to Godeffroy and Co., of Hamburg, the well-known South Sea Island traders.
The most striking objects on shore, as viewed from our position in the anchorage, were the Wesleyan Church—an old dilapidated wooden building crowning the summit of a round-topped hill, about sixty feet high, and said to be the highest point on the island—and the king's palace, a very neat-looking villa-edifice abounding in plate-glass windows, and surrounded by a low wall, in which remained two breaches, intended for the reception of massive iron gates, which, through a series of untoward circumstances, are not likely to be ever placed in position. It appears that some time ago the king gave a carte blanche order for two pairs of gates to be sent out from England, and when, after a long series of delays, owing to mistakes in the shipping arrangements, they at length reached Tongatabu, he was rather unpleasantly surprised to find that the excessive charges for freightage had run up the entire cost to the sum of £800. They were then found to be so large and massive as to be quite unsuited for the purpose for which they were intended, so they were thrown down on the ground in a disjointed condition, where they now lie, rusting and half-buried in weeds. Somewhat in the rear of the royal palace is seen a rather imposing private dwelling-house, the residence of Mr. Baker, formerly a Wesleyan minister, and now the political prime minister of the kingdom.
In the afternoon some of us walked out to see the old fortified town of Bea, which is distant from Nukualofa about four miles in a southerly direction, and is reached by a very good cart-road. This town—or, more properly speaking, village, for it is now but thinly populated—was formerly the stronghold of a party of Tongans, who objected to the introduction of Christianity, and were consequently obliged to defend themselves against the followers of the Wesleyan missionaries. The village is encircled by a rampart and moat, which have for many years past been allowed to go to decay, so that the moat is now partly obliterated with weeds and rubbish, and the strong palisades, which in former times added considerably to the defensive strength of the ramparts, have almost entirely disappeared.
As we entered the village by a cutting which pierced the ramparts on the north side, we saw the spot where Captain Croker, of H.M.S. Favourite, was shot down in 1848, when heading an armed party of bluejackets, with whom he was assisting the missionary party in an attack upon the irreconcilables. It seems to have been altogether a most disastrous and ill-advised undertaking, and of its effects some traces still remain in an assumption of physical superiority over their white fellow-creatures, which may be seen among some of the Tongans.
Nowhere have I seen the cocoa-nut trees growing in such luxuriance as at Tongatabu. Here they grow over the whole interior of the island, as well as near the seashore; a circumstance which may be attributed to the mean level of the island being only a few feet above high-water mark, and to the coral sub-soil extending over the entire island. The latter is everywhere penetrated to a greater or less degree by the sea-water, as evidenced by the brackish water which is reached on sinking a well to a depth of two or three yards.