Sea of Glory

information. Though incomplete, it provided ample evidence of the dangers of these islands. “[I]n addition to the frightful display of rocks & reefs,” Reynolds wrote, “[the chart] is garnished here & there, with notices such as ‘Brig Eliza lost’; ‘Am. Brig lost,’ etc. etc.’” Wilkes told his officers that he expected to lose no fewer than two vessels during the survey. Fear of shipwreck and cannibals prompted many of the officers to make out their wills. “[I]t is somewhat amusing to see the dispositions that each one made in case he should be the victim,” Reynolds wrote. Four months later, no one would be laughing.
    Even though the squadron already had the services of Benjamin Vanderford at its disposal, Wilkes felt it necessary to secure yet another experienced pilot at Tonga named Tom Granby. “You will find when we get to the Islands,” Wilkes assured Granby, “that I know as much about them as you do.” Granby smiled. “You may know all about them on paper,” he replied, “but when you come to the goings in and goings out, you will see who knows best, you or myself.”
    Two days later, even Wilkes was beginning to appreciate the truth of Granby’s words. They were headed to the island of Ovalau, centrally located off the east coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the group, with the second largest island, Vanua Levu, to the north. To the east was a long necklace of islands known as the Lau Group, and Wilkes sent Ringgold and the Porpoise to investigate those islands. The rest of the squadron was approaching what was known as the Koro Sea, a perilous body of water speckled with islands and coral reefs.
    At five P.M. on May 6, they sighted the island of Totoya; unfortunately it was thirty miles from the position indicated on Wilkes’s chart. The wind had built to a gale, requiring them to take three reefs in the topsails. Prudence would have dictated that they heave to for the night, especially since the Flying Fish, now under the command of Lieutenant George Sinclair, was having difficulty in the tumultuous seas. But even with darkness approaching, Wilkes elected to push on, “feeling assured we should thus save much time and probably find smoother water.” Wilkes did later admit, however, that “it is by no means a pleasant business to be running over unknown ground, in a dark night before a brisk gale, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour.”
    In the early morning hours they almost ran into Horse-Shoe Reef, which the pilot had estimated to be at least twenty miles away. Daylight revealed a dazzling array of islands, all of them “girt by white encircling reefs.” But the Flying Fish was nowhere to be seen. Impatient to begin his survey, Wilkes continued on toward the high, jagged peaks of Ovalau.
    The Peacock eventually followed the Vincennes into the anchorage at the village of Levuka, and Reynolds was immediately captivated by the view. “The Island was high and clothed in the most luxuriant verdure,” he wrote, “with many bold points of rocks and immense forests; and here and there shining waterfalls glanced amid the foliage. . . . We saw many little villages peeping from amidst the trees and scattered huts clinging to the projecting ridges of rocks, clear up to the highest parts of the Island. . . . After the Ice [of Antarctica], we hailed with joy our return to the ever green Isles of the Tropics.”
    If the landscape was reminiscent of many of the islands they had already seen, the inhabitants were something altogether different. It wasn’t just that the Fijians were bigger and more muscular, with darker skin and curlier hair than the Polynesians; it was the way they presented themselves to this already nervous group of Papalangi, the Fijian word for white people. With a huge club resting on his shoulder, a Fijian warrior made a most intimidating sight. “[T]hey were fine specimens of men . . . ,” Reynolds wrote, “begrimed with dirt, daubed with red paint & soot, the ear slit, & hanging down to the shoulder, with a bone or shell thrust in the hole, hair frizzled out to a most grotesque extent from the head, dyed of various hues & teeming with life; naked, save a girdle of Tappa around the loins, they presented a spectacle of mingled hideous-ness & ferocity that well becomes the character they have earned for themselves.”
    Reynolds and his fellow officers began to notice that there were few old people in the village. They later learned that there was