Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/118

90 cargo of wood in thirty-six hours—more than 200 canoes employed in bringing it off, day and night. We weighed and made sail for Honororoa, where we arrived on the 28th, and sent the wood on shore. On the 1st of May, 1818, we had all our wood on shore and stored. On the 2nd of May, we hauled down the English colours, and hoisted the island colours, saluting them with seven guns; we then gave the ship up to Kreymokoo, or Pitt, and went on shore to the houses prepared for our reception. It was with the greatest regret I left the ship, for it seemed as if I had lost my home; and in fact it was some time before I felt myself at all comfortable. I had sailed on board the Columbia from August, 1813, to May, 1818, a period of nearly five years; when she left England, the crew consisted of twenty-five persons, and when we sold the vessel at these islands, the steward and a black man (who had been for several years with me in the West Indian trade) and myself were all that remained, and even these left before the vessel was given up. Our houses were the largest and most pleasantly situated of any in the village, and fronting the harbour: (they were built by four different villages, each taking a house to build and furnish), and quite finished in three days. They consisted of two sleeping houses and two eating houses, (the one for women and the other for men); the sleeping-houses and women's eating-house were surrounded by a fence fifty yards square; the men's eating-house was outside of this fence, but fenced in in like manner, with a door that led from the