.
'Hurra, my lads! It's a settled thing; next week we shape our course to the Marquesas!' The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things does the very name spirit up! Naked houris--cannibal banquets--groves of cocoanut--coral reefs--tattooed chiefs--and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit-trees--carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue waters--savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols--HEATHENISH RITES AND HUMAN SACRIFICES.
Such were the strangely jumbled anticipations that haunted me during our passage from the cruising ground.

I felt an irresistible curiosity to see those islands which the olden voyagers had so glowingly described.
The group for which we were now steering (although among the earliest of European discoveries in the South Seas, having been first visited in the year 1595) still continues to be tenanted by beings as strange and barbarous as ever.

The missionaries sent on a heavenly errand, had sailed by their lovely shores, and had abandoned them to their idols of wood and stone.

How interesting the circumstances under which they were discovered! In the watery path of Mendanna, cruising in quest of some region of gold, these isles had sprung up like a scene of enchantment, and for a moment the Spaniard believed his bright dream was realized.
In honour of the Marquess de Mendoza, then viceroy of Peru--under whose auspices the navigator sailed--he bestowed upon them the name which denoted the rank of his patron, and gave to the world on his return a vague and magnificent account of their beauty.

But these islands, undisturbed for years, relapsed into their previous obscurity; and it is only recently that anything has been known concerning them.