Tobi Island Tattoo
The crew of the Mentor had the good fortune to have landed on the one island out of a thousand tiny islands scattered around the Pacific where an English speaking person then abided but it looked as if it would be to no avail.
Although Washington indicated that he had adjusted to life on Ngaruangl rather well, the crew of the Mentor were determined to ship out if they could. After several months the crew persuaded the village men to help them build a canoe. They soon set sail. Without fully understanding what they had taken on, they set sail with the intention of getting to the Philippines or at least to a place where they could get a berth back to New Bedford, Connecticut.
As luck would have it, another storm intervened. It was a gale that rivalled in intensity the storm that had seen the Mentor washed up on Ngaruangl Reef. Little did they realize it but the storm was only the first of their troubles. Meredith tells us that about halfway between Ngaruangl Reef and New Guinea lies an island that is "not much bigger than a dot on the chart" (59). On December 6, 1832, this forlorn party of shipwrecked sailors were forced ashore on Tobi Island by Tobi warriors bent on vengeance for unstated wrongs.
This is where the story gets interesting, unless of course you happen to be one of the shipwrecked party. In that case it would be considered more than merely disquieting. Fortunately, or not so fortunately, depending on one's point of view, the Tobi Islanders were not cannibals. They would "let the white men live on but as chattels and playthings, slaves to work in the taro patch, butts of inconceivable obscenities" (62). Holden, the youngest crew member, wished for death. There were few places in the Pacific that could match the Tobi environment for debauchery and misery.
In February 1833, a ship did appear off the island and heaved to. The locals launched their canoes and started out to barter coconuts and yams for a bit of iron" (63). Captain Barnard and a seaman managed to get aboard the ship, which proved to be La Sabine, a vessel registered in Spain. To the amazement of the remainder of the Mentor crew, the ship then commenced to sail merrily away. The amazement of the shipwrecked sailors quickly turned to impotent rage against their captain, that
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