Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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ssss1. In the year 1871 this also happened to an iron ship, the Ellesmere, on the island of Kandávu. She was purchased by a Levuka storekeeper for a small sum and successfully launched.

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We were cast ashore on the coast of Viti Levu. It was not a desert island, but a land of tropical luxuriance, which supported 80,000 natives with very little labour; and these natives, as far as the coast tribes (the only part of the population the white man had any knowledge of) were concerned, were known to be the most bloodthirsty and treacherous savages in the world, who carried on heathen abominations to an extent unknown in any other part of the globe, while they were privileged to live on a portion of the earth’s surface which was marked by singular beauty.

The master and mate, who survived the wreck with me, had made a former visit to the sandalwood coast, and knew something of the language and ways of the natives, whose acquaintance with the white man was of comparatively recent date. The captain expressed the opinion that our prospects of escape from a cruel death were very small.