To the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

The following extract from the letter of one of the officers of H. M. S. Herald, dated Tanna, New Hebrides, December 6th, [1854], may be of sufficient interest for insertion, which will oblige your most obedient servant, J. M.

" We sailed from Sydney on May 27th for New Zealand, and on our passage across, when nearly 300 miles from land, deep soundings were obtained on the detached bank to the westward of Cape Maris, Van Diemen. We reached Auckland, June 8th, and left the watering place at Waieki on the 22nd. On the 28th and 29th, the ship passed over two of the eastern positions assigned to the Rosaretta Shoal, on which occasion 859 and 930 fathoms of line failed to reach the bottom. On July 2nd, we reached the Sunday Island of Whalers (Raoul Island of its discoverer) where we remained surveying until the 24th, during which the ship took up no less than six anchorages, not one of which is safe, except under very favourable circumstances, such as we did not meet with. An American of the name of Halstead (with two Kingsmill women and some half-caste children), has settled here, and supplies whalers in their season with wood, stock, and vegetables. His flagstaff is in lat. 29 ° 15' S., and long, 182 ° 5' E., or 177 ° 55 W. After leaving Sunday Island we visited three positions of shoals to the northward, and two of Vasquez Island with the usual negative results ; as the latter may have gone down, it was diligently searched for with the lead. Minerva Reef, of which so many contradictory accounts and positions have been published, was next sought for and found to consist of two detached reefs.

North Minerva is nearly, 8¼ miles in diameter, with a navigable lagoon and entrance to leeward. The centre is in lat. 23 ° 38 S. and long 178 ° 46 E. On a bearing S. 40 W. (true), distant 18 miles, is the South Minerva, which in shape somewhat resembles an hour glass or the figure 8, and extends 4¾ miles in length from E. by N. to W. by S. The centre is in lat. 23 ° 57 S. and long. 179 ° 2 E. Ships may enter the eastern lagoon of this reef ; the western one is blocked up.

After much unsuccessful searching for neighbouring shoals in their assigned positions, we proceeded to Moala, one of the southern most of the Feejee Islands, where we remained from the 4th till the 9th of September. A survey of the anchorage was made. The natives were very friendly, and we obtained by water a large quantity of yams. A Tongan missionary teacher is established there. After fixing and surveying Mumbolitha, a small detached reef between Moala and Ngau we anchored on the 12th in Soieke Bay, on the west end of Ngau, where we remained a fortnight, and surveyed the neighbourhood. At this part of Ngau the natives are mostly lotu, or nominally so, but elsewhere on the island they are reputed to be the worst cannibals its Feejee ; they lately killed and ate two people from Levuka, who went there to trade.

Crossing over to Ovalau, we moored ship of the town or village of Levuka, on the 29th, and remained there, with the exception of one night at sea for eight weeks. Ovalau is perhaps the most important island of the group from being the principal seat of trade (insignificant though that be), and the head quarters of most of the white residents in Feejee, besides possessing a capital harbour. During our stay a survey was made of the boats of Ovalau, its reefs and anchorages, and the islands immediately adjacent, as Moturiki, &c. We found the Feejees in the same distracted state of petty warfare which we were told had existed for several years, and which, I am sorry to say, there seems no immediate prospect of seeing concluded.

Several conferences were held on board the Herald at Levuka with a view to settle various points at issue between the native chiefs and the white people, as well as between the chiefs themselves ; in the latter case with the view of assisting to bring about peace. At the last of these Thakambau was present, the well-known chief of Mbau, often, but erroneously, styled Tui Viti, or King of Feejee. His political power has been gradually declining late, from causes to which it would be needless to mention here. His promise to Captain Erskine (which he has kept) has prevented him from revenging himself on the whites, who have been continually supplying his enemies with arms and ammunition, and even stopped a supply ordered by him from Sydney when within 20 miles of Mbau. He has also recently shown extraordinary moderation in restraining his own people from taking any offensive steps is warfare, and has not availed himself of several opportunities he had of striking sudden and unexpected blows on some of his enemies - as Ratu Mara, and Koroi Rabulo, for instance - to the great dissatisfaction of his followers, who are thereby more inclined than formerly to enter into any plot against him. This great change in his line of conduct - for no one is more conversant with, or has more practised all the Feejeean details of treachery, murder, torture, cannibalism, &c. -is to say the least of it, remarkable, and it has been ascribed to two causes. That, which I believe to be the true one - but I here express only my own individual opinion - and highly creditable, if such be the case, to the long continued efforts of the missionaries to move his conscience, is of course ridiculed by those who derive their impressions of Feejee from the white traders and others of Levuka with whom they chose to associate, as find the moral influence of the mission gradually tend to lower them in the eyes of sue as are beginning to appreciate the difference between right and wrong. I do not include all the white traders is this, for there are several honourable exceptions, at the head of whom I would place Mr. D. Whippy, the American Vice-Consul.

At Levuka, a person of the name of James Merry (alias Ginger) was detain on suspicion of being one of the convicts who piratically seized the Lady Franklin. One of the boats of that vessel, and various other articles, furnished strong evidence in the matter, since rendered unnecessary by important disclosures which will afterwards be adduced at the trial. Two others of the gang (Joseph Davis (alias Murphy), and Dennis Griffiths (alias Dan), who had lately made a murderous attack upon the crew of a small trader, were sent for to Kantavu, and brought safely on board, after the absence for three weeks of the party sent for that purpose. Meanwhile the convicts had stolen a boat, and with the aid of two Feejeean women, escaped to the large island of Naviti Leva, where they were ransomed from the natives for five muskets and a barrel of gunpowder, under circumstances most creditable to those sent from the ship on this mission.

Meanwhile an American vessel (the Dragon, Captain Dunn) arrived from Sydney on October 28th, and brought the news relative to the probability of Mr. Benjamin Boyd being still alive at Guadalcanar. We are now on our way to the last mentioned place. Leaving the Feejees on November 24th we reached Aneiteum on the 28th; we had visited this place last year, and the first object to attract attention was the new church and mission house at Aneligauhat. The progress of the mission since our last visit had been most satisfactory; the lotu has firmly fixed itself in the last stronghold of heathenism - the central district of Itaho, and war, which once engaged the attention of the natives of Aneiteum for about nine months in each year, has entirely ceased. Only three months ago a chief of Tanna came over to Aneiteum to see - for he would not otherwise believe it - a neighbouring island where peace prevailed. He could not imagine how men of different tribes on one island could live in harmony, until he saw it.

We left Aneiteum on December 1st, and on the following morning hove to for an hour off Futuna or Erronan, to land an Aneiteum missionary teacher and his wife, and then proceeded to Tanna, which we reached in the evening, anchoring in Port Resolution, where Captain Padden has an establishment. Finding the Juno here on her route to Sydney via Anietum, Mare, and Isle of Pines, we are glad to avail ourselves of an opportunity, the first for six months, of writing to our friends. We sail this afternoon for Guadalcanar, and do not expect to reach Sydney until February, long before which time we shall have been on reduced allowance of provisions. The only casualties this cruise have been the deaths of a passenger (son of the captain) and one of the seamen named Luthen ; the latter from consumption."J.M.G.

SG 8 Jan 1855 P 10

^ back to top ^