TORREY'S NARRATIVE:
OR, THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
WILLIAM TORREY.
Who for the space of 25 months, within the years 1835, '36 and '37, was
held a captive by the Cannibals of the Marquesas, (a group of Islands
in the South Sea,) among whom he was cast from the wreck of the
Brig Doll, Capt.——, of Otaheite, of which wreck himself,
and one shipmate, can alone tell the sad tale. Also, for
many years served in the several capacities requisite
for seamen, on both English and American
Merchants' ships.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
Illustrated with Engravings of his own Sketching.
"'Tis mine to tell a tale of grief,Of constant peril, and of scant relief;Of days of danger, and of nights of pain."
BOSTON:
PRESS OF A. J. WRIGHT, 3 WATER STREET.
1848.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847,By A. L. STEARNS,in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
PREFACE.
The author, in offering his narrative to the public, is conscious ofhis almost utter inability to the task of giving it a strictly grammaticalpublication. We, whose march is upon the mountain wave, andwhose home is upon the deep, have but little opportunity, howeverstrong the desire, to become adepts in grammatical or orthographicalscience. We better know the intricacies of our calling than the intricaciesof scientific lore.
One object in this publication, (apart from the pecuniary consideration,)is to give the civilized world an insight into the manners andcustoms of the children of the island of the sea with whom the authorwas so long associated, and whose manners and customs were soindelibly fixed upon his memory as well as upon his person.
Also to note the manners and customs of the other nations of theearth, into whose society he was often forced in his many wanderingsto and fro. In pursuance of which he proposes giving a hasty geographicaland historical sketch of each place of importance which hevisited, and, to better accomplish this work, he has in many instancesconsulted the writings of others, as he, as well as all other mariners,was restricted to a certain extent by dut