'*_-

 
 li
 
 BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES.
 
 BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 With Notices of the Progress 
 of the Mission 
 
 REV. JOHN INGLIS, D.D., F.R.S.G.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " IN THE NEW HEBRIDES," ETC. 
 
 THOMAS NELSON AND SONS 
 
 London, Edinburgh, and New York 
 1890
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS volume is totally distinct from my former 
 one. Although on the same subject, and written 
 to some extent on the same plan, it is never- 
 theless totally different from the other. While 
 I have not followed the order of time in re- 
 lating events, I have endeavoured to keep up 
 the connection of subjects. I have arranged these 
 so that each chapter may be complete in itself, 
 and that the whole book from beginning to end 
 may be clearly and distinctly understood. In the 
 first part of the book the subject is entirely new : 
 fresh light from the New Hebrides is shed upon 
 texts of Scripture all more or less obscure then 
 follow sketches of natural history, manners and 
 customs of the natives, short native biographies, 
 heathen and Christian, and a statement of the 
 progress of the Mission. I pray and hope that,
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 by the blessing of God, the book may be instru- 
 mental in advancing the Divine glory, in interest- 
 ing and instructing its readers, and in advancing 
 the interests of the New Hebrides Mission. 
 
 LINCUAN COTTAGE, KIRKCOWAN, WIGTOWNSHIRE, N.B. 
 December i^t/i, 1889.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING (Genesis ii. 25; iii. 7, 
 
 21 ; John xxi. 7) I 
 
 II. THE CURSE OF CANAAN (Genesis ix. 24-27) . . 7 
 
 III. BENJAMIN'S MESS (Genesis xliii. 32-34) . . .12 
 
 IV. WITCHCRAFT FROM A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW 
 
 (Exodus xxii. 18) 17 
 
 V. GIDEON'S SOLDIERS LAPPING (Judges vii. 5, 6) . 36 
 VI. SHIBBOLETH VERSUS SIBBOLETH (Judges xii. 5,6). 41 
 VII. SAMSON AND THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 
 
 (Judges xv. 1-6) 45 
 
 THE LEVITE AND HIS CONCUBINE (Judges xx. 29, 
 
 30 ; xxi. 1-7) 
 
 SAUL AND THE YOKE OF OXEN (i Samuel xi. 5-8) 
 ABSALOM AND JOAB (2 Samuel xiv. 28-33) 
 VIII. MICAH'S MOTHER CURSING (Judges xvii. i, 2) . 54 
 IX. A SINGLE FLEA (i Samuel xxiv. 14; xxvi. 20) . 57 
 X. THE GOING IN THE TOPS OF THE MULBERRY TREES 
 
 (2 Samuel v. 22-25 ; i Chronicles xiv. 13-16) . 64 
 XI. MINISTERING ANGELS (Psalm xci. 11,12; Matthew 
 
 iv. 5, 6; Luke iv. 9-11) 70
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 XII. THE HAMMER AND THE ROCK (Jeremiah xxiii. 29) 77 
 
 XIII. THE FIG TREE (Habakkuk iii. 17 ; Paraphrase 
 
 xxxii. i) . . . ." 8 1 
 
 XIV. THE COCK CROWING TWICE (Matthew xxvi. 34, 74, 
 
 75 ; Mark xiv. 30, 71, 72) 84 
 
 XV. FASTING AND TAKING NOTHING (Acts xxvii. 33-36) 90 
 XVI. MODE OF TREATING NATIVES (Acts xxvii. 3 ; xxviii. 
 
 7 ; i Peter iii. 8) 94 
 
 XVII. NATURAL HISTORY. CORAL TREES: COCOA-NUT, 
 
 BREAD-FRUIT, ORANGE, SANDAL- WOOD . .109 
 XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY. PLANTS : TARO, YAMS, PLAN- 
 TAINS, ARROWROOT 120 
 
 XIX. NATURAL HISTORY. ANIMALS : SERPENTS, SHELL- 
 FISH, TURTLE 135 
 
 XX. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS : COOKING AND EATING ; 
 
 DRINKING KAVA 148 
 
 XXI. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM . .162 
 XXII. DISEASES ON ANEITYUM AND THEIR REMEDIES . 176 
 
 XXIII. CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM . . . .188 
 
 XXIV. NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS 204 
 
 XXV. NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS . .219 
 XXVI. NATIVE AGENCY RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN 
 
 TEACHERS 234 
 
 XXVII. COMMENCEMENT OF THE MISSION ON ANEITYUM . 243 
 
 XXVIII. THE FRENCH ON THE NEW HEBRIDES, 1887-8 . 254 
 XXIX. BISHOP PATTESON'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF 
 
 ANEITYUM , 260
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 XXX. BlOGEAPHICAL SKETCHES, HEATHEN AND CHRIS- 
 TIAN RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS . 268 
 XXXI. LASARUS AND ESTER (with illustration) . ' . .281 
 XXXII. INHALVATIMI AND THIGANUA . . . ^. .291 
 
 XXXIII. WILLIAM u 304 
 
 XXXIV. WILLIAMU'S LETTERS 320 
 
 XXXV. CONCLUSION 350
 
 BIBLE ILLUSTBATIONS FBOM THE 
 NEW HEBBIDES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 
 
 "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not 
 ashamed." GENESIS ii. 25. 
 
 "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they 
 were naked ; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves 
 aprons" (breeches, old version), (things to gird about, margin). 
 GENESIS iii. 7. 
 
 " Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of 
 skins, and clothed them." GENESIS iii. 21. 
 
 "Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his 
 fisher's coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into 
 the sea." JOHN xxi. 7. 
 
 " NAKED savages ! " This is an expression often used both by 
 missionaries, travellers, and others. Now, in one sense, it is 
 quite correct, but in another sense it is quite incorrect : for 
 the most part it is misleading. In their heathen state all the 
 natives of the New Hebrides, the men at least, are naked, so 
 far as anything they wear can protect them from cold or heat, 
 rain or wind. But, on the other hand, there is no native who 
 goes absolutely naked, or without any covering. They have 
 all some clothing, some conventional dress, however scanty, 
 which secures decency.
 
 2 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 
 
 I 
 While Adam and Eve were in a state of innocency they 
 
 were both naked, and were not ashamed. But after the fall, 
 conscious of shame, they took fig leaves and made themselves 
 girdles. And the natives of the New Hebrides retain, as 
 nearly as may be, this primitive costume. All the world over 
 dress is more or less conventional. A lady's ball-room dress, 
 conventionally proper there, would not be considered proper 
 in a church. In like manner, scanty as the native costume is, 
 so scanty that it cannot be minutely described, the natives 
 feel quite decent and proper while thus dressed ; but without 
 this, in a state of complete nudity, they would feel as much 
 ashamed as we should do, if in the same condition. 
 
 When God had revealed the first promise to Adam and 
 Eve, He covered them with skins, generally supposed to be 
 the skins of the sheep or goats slain in sacrifice. Now, our 
 natives on Aneityum, while heathen, were not only content 
 with their fig-leaf-like girdles, but they would wear no 
 European clothing of any kind, even had it been given them 
 for nothing. But no sooner did they abandon heathenism and 
 profess Christianity, than they adopted our mode of clothing. 
 Without any special teaching from us, European clothing, 
 more or less full, became the badge of Christianity ; and when 
 once they put it on they never gave up its use. On one 
 occasion, shortly after I went to Aneityum, while I was sailing 
 round to the other mission station in my boat, we saw about 
 half a score of natives walking single file along the beach ; we 
 were too far from the shore to recognise them individually. 
 But, nevertheless, one of my native boatmen said, " Six of 
 these men are heathen, and four are Christian;" I said to 
 him, "How do you know that, when they are so far off that 
 you do not know who they are?" "Oh," said he, "do you
 
 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 3 
 
 not see that four of them have on white lavalavas, while the 
 rest have none ? " A lavalava is a fathom of cloth, which is 
 wrapped round the loins, and is the smallest portion of 
 European clothing ever worn by a native man. ' On another 
 occasion, in the first years of the mission, Nahoat, one of the 
 principal chiefs, then newly professing himself a Christian, 
 was ill with a severe cold. Mr. Geddie visited him, and offered 
 to pray with him. Nohoat gladly accepted his offer. But as 
 he was lying with nothing on but his native dress, he said to 
 the missionary, " O, Misi, stop a little till I put on my lava- 
 lava." He evidently thought that European clothing was 
 essential to Christian worship. We had never taught this 
 doctrine ; but seeing the natives had taken up the idea, we 
 allowed them to retain it; it acted powerfully in promoting 
 their civilization. Our Sabbath-day clothes have a marvellously 
 elevating influence on the community ; they are an impor- 
 tant factor in our Christian culture. No doubt Campbell's 
 translation of i Peter iii. 3, 4 is the correct one, "Whose 
 adorning let it be not only that outward adorning of plaiting 
 the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on of 
 apparel ; but let it be also the hidden man of the heart, in 
 that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek 
 and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." 
 This is our rendering in the Aneityumese, sanctioned by the 
 authority of the late Eev. Mr. Meller, Rector of Woodbridge, 
 Suffolk, and Editorial Superintendent of the Foreign Versions 
 published by the British and Foreign Bible Society ; one of 
 the ablest and most exact Biblical scholars of his day. It is 
 only those of us who have had personal experience in the 
 training of " naked savages " to the use of decent clothing, 
 that can fully appreciate the great breadth and exceeding
 
 4 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 
 
 minuteness of Bible teaching, and how important it is to 
 translate every word with painstaking accuracy. The verbal in- 
 spiration of Scripture is a doctrine of vastly greater importance 
 than shallow theologians and superficial critics, who talk and 
 write so confidently, would lead us to believe. The Apostle 
 Peter emphasizes the inward adorning ; but, in accordance 
 with the whole tenor of Scripture, instead of condemning, he 
 sanctions and encourages elegant female dress, and valuable 
 female ornaments; and we found our hands strengthened by 
 his words in our efforts to civilize the savage. 
 
 Adam and Eve, in what might be called their heathen 
 state, before the gospel of Christ was revealed to them, and 
 accepted by them, wore nothing but the fig-leaf girdle ; but 
 after they became Christian, so to speak, they accepted and 
 wore a fuller and better costume. The Lord clothed them 
 with skins. True religion led the way in the civilization and 
 history of the human race. The Church became a separate 
 society. Men called themselves by the name of the Lord, by 
 some name equivalent to the name Christian given to the 
 disciples at Antioch. Cain followed his father's profession as 
 a tiller of the soil, but to that he added architecture or house- 
 building, and builded a city. Abel fed his flocks and lived on 
 the produce. Jabal originated the nomadic life, and owned 
 herds of cattle. Lamech cultivated poetry. Jubal invented 
 instruments of music. Tubal-cain (called by the Greeks, with 
 a slight change of the letters from Hebrew to Greek, Vulcan, 
 and made him the god of the Hammer-men) smelted the ores 
 and produced the useful metals. While Noah brought ship- 
 building to such perfection that, even in modern times, his 
 ark became a model, in its proportions, for the Dutch and 
 other shipbuilding nations in Europe.
 
 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 5 
 
 There is nothing new under the sun. History repeats 
 itself. This same process was observed on Aneityurn. The 
 fall of man is everywhere recognized. A sense of shame is 
 universal. I have seen naked children on the islands naked 
 little boys and girls ; but I never saw either a naked man 
 or a naked woman such may exist, but I never saw any of 
 them, nor never heard of any such in any island of the South 
 Seas. The dress might be very scanty according to our ideas 
 of dress, but it was always in accordance with some conven- 
 tional standard by which decency and propriety were secured. 
 No sooner was Christianity introduced into Aneityum than 
 the natives began to wear European clothing, as far as the 
 climate required it, and as far as their means enabled them 
 to obtain it. Like the human race after the first promise, 
 they took a new departure both in religion and civilization. 
 The Sabbath was observed ; the worship of God, public and 
 private, was set up; a higher standard of family life was 
 adopted ; education became general, and the Bible was read ; 
 a j uster and a gentler type of civil government was estab- 
 lished ; a steadier industry arose ; individual ownership of 
 property began to be more fully recognized ; and all traces 
 of the socialistic principle disappeared, and a better knowledge 
 of the mechanical arts was acquired. They could not build 
 ships like Noah, or his son Ham, their great progenitor ; but 
 they made larger and better canoes, and before long they 
 were able to handle an oar, to steer a boat, or to harpoon 
 a whale, as skilfully as if they had hailed from Newbury- 
 port, Hobart, or Peterhead, or any of the great centres of the 
 Avhale-fishing industry. In short, in a small way, they began 
 to take their place in the comity of Christian and civilized
 
 6 NAKEDNESS AND CLOTHING. 
 
 communities, and year by year they continue to advance in 
 Christianity and culture. 
 
 Peter was naked, but not absolutely so ; he had on some 
 underclothing, but he threw on his upper garment. In the 
 Aneityumese New Testament we have rendered it, " he had 
 nothing on save a lavalava," which is the way a Christian 
 native would dress when fishing. In Scotland we say of a 
 man who is working, that he is stripped to the shirt, when 
 he has thrown off his vest as well as his coat. But we do not 
 mean that he has nothing on but his shirt; and every one 
 understands what is meant, although out of Scotland it would 
 be understood literally. Peter was naked, simply in the 
 sense that we say a savage is naked, when his clothing is 
 sufficient for decency but no more. He was not dressed in 
 his usual apparel. In every language there are brief elliptical 
 expressions, which cannot be taken literally, but which no one 
 misunderstands who knows the idiom of the language ; and 
 this word naked is one of these, both in the Scriptures and 
 among ourselves. 
 
 At the trial of the Bishop of Murray in the General 
 Assembly of 1638, Mr. Andrew Cant, minister of Pitsligo, 
 bore witness "that the Bishop was a pretty dancer; at his 
 daughter's bridal he danced in Ms shirt." Of course this 
 could mean no more than that he had stripped off both his 
 coat and vest.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CURSE ON CANAAN. 
 
 " And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son 
 had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of 
 servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the 
 Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall 
 enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan 
 shall be his servant." GENESIS ix. 24-27. 
 
 THIS prophecy is amazingly distinct, and yet it was very long 
 in being fulfilled. At first, and for many long centuries, it 
 seemed as if a blessing and not a curse rested upon the family 
 of Ham. For nearly 2000 long years the dominant races 
 upon the earth were the descendants of Ham. It was nearly 
 900 years before the Canaanites, those specially marked out 
 in the cuflse, were subdued by Joshua. All the first great 
 empires that arose in the world were established by the 
 descendants of Noah's younger son. According to the mar- 
 ginal reading of the Bible, generally recognised as the most 
 correct, Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, by Gush, his eldest 
 son, went out into Assyria, and builded Nineveh. And for 
 ages the city which he built, and the empire which he 
 founded, continued to overshadow all Western Asia. When 
 Layard was carrying on his excavations in Nineveh, and had 
 disinterred a monster statue, the natives, as soon as they saw 
 it, all shouted out, Nimroud ! Nimroud ! thus adding to the 
 testimony of Scripture a tradition of 4000 years continuance, 
 as to who was the founder of the city. Mizraim, the second son
 
 THE CURSE ON CANAAN. 
 
 of Ham, founded the Egyptian monarchy and the Philistian 
 commonwealth. Canaan, the fourth son of Hani, settled in 
 Palestine, and his descendants founded first the Canaanitish 
 kingdoms, then Tyre and Sidon, and subsequently Carthage. 
 Also the great empire of the Hittites only now brought to 
 light. These were for many long centuries the leading 
 nations of the world ; .they possessed its highest civilization, 
 and held all but a monopoly of its commerce. 
 
 How slow are God's threatenings in being inflicted ! how 
 slow are His promises in being fulfilled ! And there can be 
 no doubt that when Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, and others of 
 the Hebrew prophets were respectively warning their fellow- 
 countrymen of their danger, exhorting them to repent of 
 their sins and be obedient to their God, and fearlessly pre- 
 dicting the judgments that were about to descend upon them, 
 and upon the guilty nations around the sceptics of those 
 days the men who had ceased to believe in a personal God 
 and a special providence ; in the truth of prophecy and in the 
 efficacy of prayer the agnostics, the materialists, the ration- 
 alists, the pantheists, and the atheists all the advanced 
 thinkers of those days ; the men of professedly high culture 
 and refined taste ; the men who had avowedly risen above the 
 superstitions of the times these all would attempt to turn 
 aside the point and force of those threatening predictions, by 
 referring with a sneer to the prophecy of Noah. " It is now," 
 they would say, "nearly 2000 years since Noah predicted 
 these judgments against the descendants of Ham, and when 
 are they to be fulfilled 1 " It would be convenient for them 
 to ignore the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, and with great 
 assurance they would proceed to say, " Is not the sea coast 
 still occupied by the five Lords of the Philistines ? Are not
 
 THE CUIISE ON CANAAN. 9 
 
 the kings of the Hittites on the other side of Lebanon as 
 powerful as ever 1 Does not Tyre sit, as of old, queen of the 
 seas ? Is not Egypt, as she has ever been, the chief among 
 the nations ? And who, what people on the face of the earth, 
 can stand before the great king, the king of Assyria ? Is not 
 Nineveh the metropolis, the mother city, the mistress and 
 ruler of the whole world ? " So, no doubt, spoke the scoffer, 
 and the believer in prophecy, inspiration, and Holy Scripture 
 found it very difficult to answer his objections. It required 
 faith like that of Abraham's to enable them to hold on by 
 God's covenant : they had to endure as seeing Him who is 
 invisible. 
 
 But the Lord is not slack concerning either His promises or 
 His threatenings, as some men count slackness; a thousand 
 years are with Him as one day. Even then, the believer had 
 not long to wait till Nineveh, Egypt, Tyre, and other Hametic 
 nations fell. But if difficult then, it would be easy now. 
 Let any one take a look at New Zealand, and then accompany 
 us in our mission vessel, the Dayspring, and we can show him 
 this prophecy, which was uttered more than 4000 years ago, 
 fulfilled to the very letter. In the South Seas he will find 
 portions of the three races, Shemetic, Hametic, and Japhetic, 
 as distinctly marked off from one another as were the three 
 sons of Noah, when they took their leave of the ark among 
 the mountains of Ararat, or when a century later their speech 
 was confounded at Babel ; when the earth was divided, and 
 the three families, each according to their tongues, took pos- 
 session of their respective portions, when 
 
 " The world was all before them where to choose, 
 And Providence their guide."
 
 10 THE CUESE ON CANAAN. 
 
 But let us take the prophecy verse by verse. " Cursed be 
 Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." 
 Ham was cursed in the person of his youngest, probably his 
 favourite, son. He was cursed in his descendants. Now in 
 the New Hebrides we see this curse lying in all its crushing 
 weight. The Papuans, the poor descendants of Ham, are 
 lying in the lowest state of degradation, trodden down by 
 the iron heel of every oppressor. Let us take the next verse, 
 " Blessed be the Lord God of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his 
 servant." In the fulfilment of this blessing we find that the 
 whole of the Malay race, descendants of Shem, in the South 
 Seas, had abandoned heathenism, had embraced Christianity, 
 and had the Bible translated for them into the six principal 
 dialects of their language, while the whole, or nearly the 
 whole, of the Papuan race, the children of Ham, were still 
 lying in heathen darkness. And wherever these Malays, 
 these children of Shem, go in the South Seas, these Papuans 
 are willing to be their servants. Everywhere we see the 
 Papuans serving the Malays, Canaan being the servant of 
 Shem; but nowhere do we see the Malays serving the 
 Papuans, or Shem being the servant of Canaan. Now let 
 us take the last verse : " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he 
 shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his 
 servant. " We, the descendants of Japheth, seem to be specially 
 called of God at the present day to colonize and evangelize 
 the world. Our fellow-countrymen in New Zealand, for 
 example, are dwelling in the tents of Shem they are dwell- 
 ing on the land long occupied by the Maories, a tribe of the 
 Malays ; while the rowdyism of Sydney and of Brisbane are 
 reviving the slave-trade, kidnapping the poor Papuans, and 
 carrying them into servitude in Queensland, Fiji, and New
 
 THE CUKSE ON CANAAN. I I 
 
 Caledonia. But especially has God enlarged us, and given us 
 the heritage of Shem, by making us the representatives of 
 His visible Church, to dispense its blessings to the heathen ; 
 and these poor Gibeonites are willing to become hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water to us for the house of the Lord. 
 Yesj " Canaan shall be his servant."
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 BENJAMIN'S MESS. 
 
 " And they set on for him by himself, and for them by themselves, 
 and for the Egyptians which dM eat with him by themselves : because 
 the Egyptians might not eat with the Hebrews j for that is an abomina- 
 tion unto the Egyptians. And he took and sent messes unto them from 
 before him : but Benjamin's mess was Jive times so much as any of theirs." 
 GENESIS xliii. 32, 34. 
 
 THERE is no difficulty in understanding why there were three 
 tables one for Joseph, one for the Egyptians, and one for the 
 Hebrews. Joseph, either from his rank, or from his being a 
 foreigner, did not eat with the Egyptians ; and his brethren 
 would eat by themselves, because to eat with the Hebrews was 
 an abomination to the Egyptians. But that Benjamin should 
 have five times the quantity of food sent to him that was sent 
 to any of his brethren, who, doubtless, after the manner of a 
 feast, had abundance, is contrary to all our customs, and to all 
 our ideas of table etiquette ; but to a native of the South Seas 
 Joseph's mode of procedure would cause no difficulty, it is 
 quite in accordance with their own. There is no religious 
 caste among them, as in India ; but for nationality and rank 
 they make a difference in the quantity of food supplied at 
 meals. At our feasts we have different courses, one following 
 another ; with the natives each guest receives his full share of 
 the food at once. Our custom also is for each one to eat as 
 much as he pleases, and whatever is not eaten of each course
 
 BENJAMIN S MESS. I 3 
 
 is left on the plate, or on the table, or in the house. But 
 this is not the custom in the South Seas. Each guest, having 
 received his share of the food, eats what he thinks proper, and 
 whatever is left he puts into his basket, or ties up in a leaf, 
 and takes it home with him, to eat next day, or divide among 
 his family or his friends. But perhaps I cannot illustrate 
 this better than by g'iving an account of a little feast that we 
 had on Aneityum, in one of the first years of our mission, at 
 the opening of a new school- house, which was also to be used 
 as a place of worship. 
 
 The feast was provided by Amosa, a Samoan teacher, who 
 had charge of the station, and Nemet, the chief of the district. 
 There were four parties of us, composed of three nationalities ; 
 viz., a missionary party, a teacher party, and two Aneityumese 
 parties. There were the two mission families ; Dr. and Mrs. 
 Geddie and their children being with us at the time. We had 
 also four Rarotongan teachers and their wives and some 
 children, who had been left with us for two months or so by the 
 captain of the John Williams, till the vessel went up to Sydney 
 for repairs. A party of Aneityumese also accompanied us. 
 We had a service of singing, prayer, and addresses in the 
 new building. After that the oven, a very large one, was 
 opened, and the contents carefully divided into four parts. A 
 table was set for the missionary party in the teacher's house ; 
 and, we being the most important strangers, a mess like that 
 of Benjamin's was brought to us. It consisted of two large 
 baskets of taro, steaming hot from the oven ; two fowls, cooked 
 in the same way ; a large fish, in shape and size like a goodly 
 14 Ib. salmon, cooked also in the oven; a large bunch of 
 beautiful bananas, fully ripe and yellow, all fit for eating, and 
 a large basket of fresh cocoa-nuts, all husked and ready for
 
 14 BENJAMIN'S MESS. 
 
 drinking. My wife had provided tea and sugar, and other 
 accompaniments ; so that we sat down to what, in some places, 
 would be called a high tea, or a knife and fork tea, or a tea 
 with something, and that greatly beyond the ordinary, to it. 
 Mats were spread outside, under banyan and bread-fruit trees, 
 for the other three parties, as Abraham provided for the 
 three celestial visitors under the oak at Mamre. The next 
 largest portion was for the Rarotongan teachers, which, 
 though greatly less than ours, was yet twice as much as they 
 could possibly eat. The third portion was for the Aneityumese 
 who had accompanied us ; it was a full meal, but not much 
 more. And the fourth portion was for Amosa and Nemet 
 and their friends who had provided the feast, and consisted 
 of the smallest of the taro, and the most diminutive of the 
 fishes ; it was a scanty meal, and barely allayed the cravings 
 of their hunger. After we had partaken to satisfaction of 
 our sumptuous meal, our Aneityumese servants came and 
 gathered up all that was left, as the disciples did with the 
 remains of the loaves and the fishes, packed it into baskets, 
 and took all home; to have left anything behind us would 
 have been an insult to our entertainers. Enough of what 
 was brought home was set apart to do for our breakfast next 
 morning, the rest was divided among the natives living on 
 our premises, and when they had all had a good meal, whatever 
 was left, if any, was carried forth as a kind of overflow meal 
 to their friends and neighbours outside of the mission household. 
 The Egyptians, like the Papuans, were descendants of Ham. 
 Egypt was Ham's land. We may therefore legitimately infer 
 that the people would do in Egypt then very much as the 
 people do on Aneityum at the present time ; and that Ben- 
 jamin's servants, who would be waiting somewhere outside,
 
 BENJAMIN'S MESS. 15 
 
 in one of the courts of Joseph's palace, would come in when 
 the feast was over, and gather up the remains of his mess, 
 put it into scrips, or bags, or baskets, and carry all home to 
 their lodgings ; the servants of the others would do the same, 
 and in that time of famine they, as well as their masters, 
 would feast on those royal dainties till they were finished. 
 Benjamin would have the honour, but his brethren and the 
 servants would enjoy the benefit, and Joseph would be 
 applauded for his princely hospitality. On Aneityum, in 
 heathen times, he was the great man who had the most food, 
 and he was the good man who dispensed it most liberally. 
 He was the poor man who had little food, and he was the bad 
 man who was stingy with his food, and gave it grudgingly. 
 Liberality in giving food was the highest virtue, and stinginess 
 with respect to food was the greatest sin. 
 
 We hear nothing of servants in the narrative ; but we can- 
 not conceive of Jacob's sons going all the way from Canaan 
 to Egypt with a solitary ass, or even more, each, to carry up 
 a supply of corn for their families, amounting to upwards of 
 one hundred persons, exclusive of servants. A few years 
 before, when Jacob returned from Padan-Aram, he had a 
 large number of men-servants and maid-servants, even a great 
 household. We may safely suppose that Jacob's sons had a 
 large number of retainers and servants accompanying them, 
 that they formed a large caravan, although the historian 
 does not find it necessary to refer to them for the purpose of 
 his narrative ; the servants not doing anything that required 
 their presence to be noticed. Brevity being so carefully 
 studied by the sacred writers, everything not essential to 
 their main subject is invariably excluded. 
 
 The more natural, beautiful, and truth-like do the Scripture
 
 1 6 BENJAMIN'S MESS. 
 
 narratives appear, in proportion as we know the manners and 
 customs of the times and the places to which they refer ; and 
 from the most remote and obscure corners of the earth, even 
 the tiny and distant isles of the sea, come light and know- 
 ledge to illustrate and confirm the truth of sacred history.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WITCHCRAFT FKOM A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 
 " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." EXODUS xxii. 18. 
 
 THIS text may receive some light from our missionary experi- 
 ence. The Hebrew word mecashepJia, translated witch, wizard, 
 sorcerer, magician, &c., comes from the verb cashaph, which 
 signifies to pray, to offer prayers or worship ; but is restricted 
 to the worship of idols, hence it signifies to use enchantments, 
 to use magical songs, to mutter. It was the connection of 
 witchcraft with idolatry, and hence with the virtual renoun- 
 cing of Jehovah, which rendered it a sin so displeasing to God, 
 and made it to be treason under the Theocracy. For a century 
 and a half after the Reformation burning for witchcraft was 
 common in this country. In the early part of last century 
 this practice ceased. The scepticism that afterwards prevailed, 
 as well as the clearer knowledge that was diffused throughout 
 society, banished superstition, and in all intelligent circles 
 destroyed the belief in witchcraft. The belief lingered among 
 the ignorant ; but for a century and a half, if any of the laws 
 against witchcraft have remained in the statute-book, they 
 have been a dead letter. 
 
 That evil spirits exist the Scriptures amply prove; that 
 men may hold communication with them is possible; that 
 they did so in ancient times the Bible clearly affirms. Satan 
 appeared to Adam and Eve and tempted them; he did the
 
 I 8 WITCECKAFT FHOM 
 
 same to our Saviour in the wilderness. Dealing with familiar 
 spirits was common in Old Testament times. Our Saviour 
 spoke to the evil spirits and cast them out. That men should 
 still hold intercourse with evil spirits is certainly possible. 
 But, as the eminently judicious Thomas Scott, the commen- 
 tator, says : "As by certain degrees of civilization wild beasts 
 are banished or extirpated, so, in some stages of civilization, 
 the practice of witchcraft is nearly excluded." It is so in 
 this country at the present time, and Satan acquiesces; "nor 
 is he any loser by exchanging the practice of witchcraft for 
 the prevalence of scepticism." "Witchcraft is generally under- 
 stood to mean " a compact with evil spirits, by whose agency 
 and assistance, applied for by certain incantations, effects of 
 various kinds may be produced, by which malice, or covetous- 
 ness, or other corrupt passions may be gratified." A current 
 belief in our times is, that there is no such thing as witchcraft, 
 and that there never was such a thing; that it never was 
 anything but pretence; that in most cases men who were 
 cleverer than their neighbours, or who were better acquainted 
 with the laws of nature than others, either professed them- 
 selves or allowed others to believe that certain things were 
 accomplished by supernatural powers that were done simply 
 by superior skill or through a better knowledge of the laws of 
 nature ; that sleight-of-hand was passed off for a compact with 
 the devil; and that those persons found it to be for their 
 advantage to allow such delusions to pass uncontradicted. 
 Furthermore, it is also a part of the popular belief still, that, 
 in those times, if an old woman was only very poor and very 
 ugly, it was quite sufficient to raise the suspicion that she was 
 a witch, irrespective of anything connected with her former 
 character or history. We are certain of this, that, whether
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 1 9 
 
 any person in those remote times was in league with the devil 
 or not, and through the agency of evil and malignant spirits 
 inflicted injuries of various kinds on others, there was among 
 the community at large, whether rightly or wrongly, a fixed 
 and firm belief in the existence of witchcraft, and they acted 
 on this belief. 
 
 In reading such books as Sir Walter Scott's " Letters on 
 Demonology and Witchcraft," or the Rev. Walter Scott's 
 " Lectures on the Existence and Agency of Evil Spirits," and 
 learning the history of witchcraft in England, Scotland, and 
 New England, one is led to exclaim, "Oh, poor human 
 nature ! " one's blood is apt to boil at the cruelties exercised 
 by the witch-finders and witch-prickers of those times, and 
 we cannot be too thankful that we live in an age of Christian 
 light and knowledge, when witchcraft has disappeared. Still 
 there is another side to this question ; and after living three 
 and thirty long years in lands where witchcraft was in the 
 air, so to speak ; where " I believe in witchcraft " was the 
 first article in the popular creed ; accepted as true as certainly 
 as " I believe in God the Father Almighty " is among us ; I 
 am led to be much more charitable towards our forefathers in 
 their prosecutions for witchcraft, than would be sanctioned 
 by the average of public opinion in the present day. Our 
 forefathers had doubtless as much common sense as we have ; 
 they were naturally as just and as humane as we are ; but 
 they lived under different circumstances, and they are not 
 to be blamed for doing what they did, as we should be 
 blamed were we to do the same. As opportunity makes 
 the thief, so ignorance and superstition produce the witch. 
 Human nature is the same in all ages, and men everywhere 
 are greatly influenced by their surroundings and their environ-
 
 2O WITCHCRAFT FEOM 
 
 ments. Our forefathers were just emerging from the ignor- 
 ance and superstition of the dark ages ; and it was by slow 
 degrees that they emancipated themselves from the errors of 
 the times, from the belief in witchcraft and kindred opinions, 
 and attained to our present standing-ground on these questions. 
 The belief in the supernatural has prevailed in all ages and in 
 all countries ; it is co-existent with the human race. Religious 
 belief and feeling, or a belief in the supernatural, is as much 
 an essential part of man's nature as conscience or reason ; and 
 it manifests itself either in true religion, or in superstition ; 
 either in the worship of God, or the worship of the devil ; or 
 it may be partly of both. The existence of superstition is 
 essential to the existence of witchcraft. Where superstition 
 abounds the belief in witchcraft will also abound. In the 
 New Hebrides there is the grossest ignorance, and hence 
 there is the most debasing superstition. The belief in witch- 
 craft is universal and unwavering. Witchcraft is accepted 
 as a reality, as a thing about which there can be no doubt. 
 No death, at least the death of no person of any importance, 
 is ever recognised as resulting from natural causes ; the death 
 of such persons is always ascribed to witchcraft; and the 
 question to be answered is, by whom has the death been 
 caused ? Of course it is always ascribed to some enemy. 
 On one occasion my fellow-missionary, Dr. Geddie, was over 
 at Port Resolution on Tanna, and was urging Miaki, a 
 principal chief there, to give up heathenism and become a 
 Christian. Miaki said he wished to do so as soon as he had 
 avenged the death of five of his men of two who had been 
 killed in battle, and of three who had been killed by witch- 
 craft. Dr. Geddie, knowing that the killing by witchcraft 
 was pure imagination, tried his best to reason him out of
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 2 I 
 
 his belief, and to convince him that the sacred men had no 
 power whatever that God only has the power of life and 
 death. But, alas ! Leviathan was not to be so easily tamed. 
 Miaki remained firm in the belief, that the three men were 
 as certainly killed by witchcraft, as that the two were shot 
 in battle. A new faith must be implanted before the old 
 beliefs can be eradicated. It gives way only before "the 
 expulsive power of a new affection." The belief of the 
 natives in witchcraft is much stronger than was the belief 
 of our forefathers three centuries ago. We are quite safe 
 in assuming that the sacred men in the New Hebrides 
 possess no more supernatural power than did the witches 
 in Scotland two or three hundred years ago. These sacred 
 men, however, possess and exercise a tremendous power ; but 
 it is exercised by working on the superstitious fears of their 
 fellow-countrymen. A similar power was possessed and 
 exercised by those who professed to deal in the black arts 
 in the days of our forefathers ; and in like manner the secret 
 of their power lay, not in any compact which they had made 
 with the Evil One, but in the strong superstitious fears of the 
 age. This is undoubtedly the case in the New Hebrides. 
 If a native becomes unwell, and if he fancies that he is 
 bewitched, or if it is known that some sacred man has per- 
 formed some incantation upon him, no European medicine, 
 or no treatment that we can give, will cure him he believes 
 that it may mitigate the disease, or ward off death for a time, 
 but till the incantation is taken off, either by the person who 
 laid it on, or by some other person equally powerful in spells, 
 the sick person believes that he cannot recover ; he has the 
 sentence of death in himself, and he will as certainly die as 
 if he had been mortally wounded by a spear, or a bullet, or
 
 22 WITCHCRAFT FROM 
 
 any lethal weapon ; hence the sacred man who, by his incan- 
 tations, works in this way on the superstitious fears of any 
 of his countrymen, so as to cause his death, is as really a 
 murderer as the man who shoots him dead with his musket. 
 To prevent incantation the natives, on some islands at least, 
 are scrupulously careful, after every meal, to collect every 
 particle of skin, or rind, or crumb, and either burn them or 
 cast them into the sea, lest any enemy should get hold of 
 them, and form some incantation with them, and employ it 
 to cause sickness or death. As soon as Christianity was 
 generally professed on Aneityum, the native belief was, that 
 the sacred men had no longer any power. It was astonishing 
 how rapidly the superstitious fears of the people were dis- 
 pelled, and their belief in the natmasses or spirits was not 
 only shaken, but completely lost. The effect was almost the 
 same as that which the Christian fathers attributed to the 
 birth of Christ, or as that which Dr. Blair so eloquently 
 ascribes to the Saviour's death, when he says, " In that hour, 
 the foundation of every Pagan temple shook the statue of 
 every false god tottered on its base the priest fled from the 
 falling shrine and the heathen oracles became dumb for ever." 
 But by and by we learned that, while they sincerely believed 
 that the witchcraft of Aneityum was one of the lost arts, 
 there was still a partial belief that in fhe heathen islands 
 around the power of witchcraft remained. When some of our 
 adventurous young men went to Tanna or Eromanga, they 
 sometimes brought home material for witchcraft from those 
 islands, and threatened or attempted, by such ingredients, to 
 practise witchcraft. Navalak and Paulo, two of our principal 
 chiefs, came to me one day very angry with two of these 
 young men, who had returned from Tanna, and who were
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 23 
 
 threatening to bewitch them, and compass their death by this 
 means, in revenge for some punishment which they had 
 inflicted upon them for some offence of which they had been 
 guilty. They evidently believed that the young men pos- 
 sessed some power to do them mischief, and wished to have 
 them punished for their conduct, as being a species of treason- 
 felony. I strongly condemned the conduct of the young men, 
 but counselled forbearance, and comforted the chiefs with the 
 assurance that these threats, or attempts at witchcraft, were 
 utterly powerless ; that the devil has no power as against God ; 
 that the Lord has said, " There is no enchantment against 
 Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel ; " that 
 Balaam of old had no power to bewitch or curse the children 
 of Israel; and Satan and his servants have as little power 
 now to bewitch God's people. They were two good Christian 
 men, and they believed my words, and went away pacified 
 and satisfied. 
 
 Some ten or twelve years ago a young woman was married 
 at my station, and, as often happened on such occasions, one 
 or two young men were greatly disappointed, and hence were 
 very angry. One of these had been at Eromanga during the 
 whaling season, and had brought home with him a quantity 
 of the material used there for incantations, the chief in- 
 gredient of which was a species of black lead. "With us 
 marriages were usually performed in the church at the 
 Wednesday prayer- meeting. After the service was over the 
 missionary always shook hands with the bride and bride- 
 groom, his wife followed and did the same, and afterwards 
 as many of the congregation as wished to do so. On this 
 occasion one of these disappointed young men went up with 
 the others, and shook hands with them, and left on the bride's
 
 24 WITCHCRAFT FKOM 
 
 hand some of the incantation matter, without her observing 
 it. It so happened that on that day my wife and I were 
 going on board the Dayspring, our mission vessel, to visit 
 some of the other islands, and to be absent for a month. 
 The vessel was lying in the offing, and we went on board 
 direct from the church, and knew nothing of what I am 
 about to relate till our return. The young bride had hardly 
 left the church, when one of this young man's companions 
 went up to her, and said, "Did you see what So-and-so did 
 to you ? " She said, " No." " Look at your hand," said he, 
 "and see how black it is. You are bewitched." She opened 
 her hand and looked, and lo, there were the marks of the 
 black pigment ! She stood transfixed, as if she had been 
 shot. She felt that she had been bewitched, and was certain 
 that she would die. She cried all the way home, more than 
 three miles ; she cried all night, cried all the next day, and 
 all the next night, would eat nothing, cried till her eyes were 
 red and her face yellow, till she had all the appearance of one 
 suffering from jaundice; she was sure she would die, and 
 most certainly would have died, in spite of all that her friends 
 could say to make her believe that there was nothing in the 
 incantation. But it so happened that there was a small party 
 of Tannese working to a white man, about eight miles distant, 
 and among these was a sacred man, who was held to be able 
 to remove the effects of witchcraft. He was sent for, and 
 when he came, he took a small branch of a tree held to be 
 sacred on Tanna, dipped it in water, and sprinkled it over 
 the head of the poor girl, repeating at the same time some 
 unknown words. The enchantment was held to be taken off, 
 the young woman's superstitious fears were removed, and in 
 a short time she was herself again. It has almost invariably
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. . 25 
 
 happened in our mission that when any untoward event 
 occurred on the one side of the island, another of the same 
 kind took place on the other side. About three weeks after- 
 wards there was a marriage at the other station, and a disap- 
 pointed young man practised the very same trick upon the 
 young bride, with essentially the same results, which had to 
 be removed by similar means. We had a good deal of trouble 
 before we eradicated the belief in this importation of foreign 
 witchcraft. The wife of one of our principal chiefs was sup- 
 posed to be bewitched, and, as it was believed, narrowly 
 escaped with her life; and many of our best and most 
 intelligent natives were greatly staggered in their belief 
 about it. When I spoke to them on the subject, they said, 
 " You know our hearts are weak and dark. We know that 
 Satan has lost all power to work by witchcraft on this island, 
 because we have ceased to believe in him and worship him ; 
 but we thought he might still be able to work by the black 
 arts belonging to the heathen islands where he is still 
 worshipped." 
 
 There are few subjects on which certain of the would- 
 be advanced thinkers of this nineteenth century wax more 
 eloquent than when they are denouncing our forefathers on 
 the subject of witchcraft. No terms are strong enough for 
 decrying the ignorance, the bigotry, and the fanaticism of 
 our ancestors, especially the clergy of those times, on this 
 subject; so much so, that the belief largely prevails, that 
 such was the fanaticism of the times, that if a woman was 
 only poor, and old, and ugly, and perhaps a little better 
 informed than her neighbours, she was sure to be suspected 
 of being a witch, would most likely be tried, and very pro- 
 bably be burned. It may frankly be admitted that the recog-
 
 26 WITCHCRAFT FIIOM 
 
 nised witches and wizards of 200 or 300 years ago had no 
 more supernatural power than the sacred men of the New 
 Hebrides of the present day ; but the people of those times, 
 like the savages of our days, were superstitious, and believed 
 in witchcraft they believed that certain persons possessed 
 supernatural power to inflict evil, and to cause sickness, death, 
 or other calamities ; the ancient witchcraft, like the modern, 
 was always employed for evil, never for good ; the true worship 
 and service of God produces nothing but good, the worship 
 and service of the devil is always connected with malignant 
 purposes. Moreover, certain persons in those times professed 
 to possess supernatural power, and practised on the super- 
 stitious fears of the people, just as the sacred men on the 
 New Hebrides do at the present day, and no doubt they often 
 caused the death of superstitious people. The two young men 
 on Aneityum who wrought on the superstitious fears of the 
 two young women, would as certainly have been murderers, 
 had those two young women died, as they evidently would 
 have done had the incantations not been, as they believed, 
 taken away, as if they had shot them ; at all events they 
 would have been chargeable with culpable homicide, and on 
 the heathen islands such things are of frequent occurrence, 
 and would still be more frequent, were it not that a salutary 
 fear is inspired by the threats of the chief, the secret machina- 
 tions of the avenger of blood, and the counter incantations 
 that can be brought into play by some other sacred man. 
 Now assuming, as we may safely do, that the witchcraft of 200 
 or 300 years ago was essentially the same as the witchcraft of 
 the New Hebrides at the present day, the witches of those 
 times were not as a class poor, old, innocent women, of the 
 type of Mause in Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," they were
 
 MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 27 
 
 largely a wicked class of men and women, practising on the 
 superstitious fears of the people for selfish and wicked ends, 
 and through the influence of those fears bringing on sickness, 
 or causing death and other evils, and extorting payments or 
 levying blackmail to avert those calamities ; and they are barely 
 extinct even yet. At this very hour, amid all the blazing light 
 of this nineteenth century, with the schoolmaster abroad, 
 science popularised, the penny newspaper in every man's 
 hand, knowledge, scriptural and secular, so universally dif- 
 fused, that the light of the moon is become as the light of the 
 sun ; yet just now, I happen to know of an old, bold, wicked 
 woman, who gives her neighbours to understand that her 
 wishes and her curses are not to be despised, as her words 
 seldom fall to the ground ; and hence she levies blackmail 
 over a good part of the district, and she tells her friends that 
 the highest lady in the parish never refuses her anything that 
 she asks from her ; and that, not because she loves her, but 
 because she fears her. What would this beldame not have 
 done 200 years ago ? Are we therefore to blame very severely 
 the authorities of those times for inflicting punishment, even 
 capital punishment, on persons guilty of such crimes, any 
 more than we should blame the authorities of the present 
 day when they punish men for threatening to shoot the Queen 
 or any other person 1 These witches or wizards were no doubt 
 often murderers, or at least manslayers, just as the sacred men 
 in the New Hebrides are at the present time, and deserved to 
 be punished as such ; not because they were in league with 
 the devil, and possessed power derived from him, but by pro- 
 fessing to possess such power, and threatening, or affecting, to 
 exercise it, they were culpable to the extent of the mischief 
 likely to accrue. Hence, in these circumstances, the burning
 
 28 WITCHCRAFT FROM 
 
 of witches was not the absurd, outrageous, indefensible crime 
 that, tried by our light and in our circumstances, it would 
 undoubtedly be. It was a rude kind of justice, like a great 
 deal of the justice of those times. It was society protecting 
 itself against a formidable and peculiar evil. No doubt many 
 innocent persons suffered, but they did the same in many other 
 ways, as the laws were then administerd. Witchcraft does 
 not now exist, because the elements out of which it grew, viz., 
 ignorance and superstition, are removed. In those times 
 superstition prevailed among all classes. It was found to be 
 nearly as strong among the upper ten thousand, as among 
 servant-maids, cottars' wives, well-to-do tradesmen, and wealthy 
 farmers. Persons of the highest rank were accused of witqh- 
 craft, as well as poor old women. After the death of King 
 Edward IV. of England, his mistress, the beautiful Jane 
 Shore, became attached to Lord Hastings. Their known 
 partiality to the young princes rendered them obnoxious to 
 the Duke of Gloucester, who accused them of witchcraft. 
 On this charge Hastings was beheaded, and Jane Shore was 
 committed to the Tower. After a mock trial she was ordered 
 to do penance in St. Paul's -in a Avhite sheet, and was paraded 
 through the public streets, the Bishop of London heading the 
 procession. Be it admitted that, while the ostensible charge 
 against them was one of witchcraft, the real charge sought to 
 be made out was one of treason. Nevertheless, such was the 
 superstition of the time, that it was easier to establish a 
 charge of witchcraft than a charge of treason, and the most 
 easily proved charge answered the purpose of the tyrant best ; 
 and the public mind recognised the charge as quite competent. 
 In Scotland, too, ladies of the highest rank were at times 
 accused of practising witchcraft, of seeking to compass the
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 29 
 
 death of royal personages, by incantations and pactions with 
 Satan ; and, no doubt, traitors at times sought to accomplish 
 their ends by such means. 
 
 The superstition of 200 years ago was almost equal to 
 anything existing in the South Seas at the present time. 
 History informs us that before the Revolution, when so many 
 of the Scottish nobility fled over to Holland, Colin, the young 
 Earl of Balcarres, was engaged to be married to Maritia de 
 Nassau, a charming young Dutch lady, a relation of the Prince 
 of Orange. But when the marriage day came, and the bride 
 and her party arrived in the church, the bridegroom was not 
 there ; and when his friends went to seek him, they found 
 him sitting in his morning gown quite oblivious of his 
 engagement. As he went out hastily, he forgot the ring in 
 his writing-case, a friend in the company gave him one, the 
 ceremony went on, and, without looking at the ring, he placed 
 it on the finger of the fair young bride. When the ceremony 
 was over, the bride happened to look at the ring, and, to her 
 horror, she discovered that it was a mourning one, with a 
 death's-head and cross-bones on it ; and the belief then was, 
 that any woman married with a mourning ring would die 
 within a year. On seeing the ring the young lady fainted, 
 being fully impressed with the belief that she would die within 
 a twelvemonth ; and in spite of all that could be said or done 
 to her, she pined away and died before the year was out. 
 Imagination kills, and imagination cures. Now, if such was 
 the power of superstition at that time in the most enlightened 
 court in Europe, more than 150 years after the Reformation, 
 what must it have been among the people in general ? What 
 ample material must have existed for producing witchcraft ! 
 
 Under the Mosaic Law witchcraft was regarded as a sin
 
 30 WITCHCRAFT FROM 
 
 against God, it was a worshipping of the devil, a breaking of the 
 first, second and third commandments. It was idolatry ; and 
 no sin was so heinous, or so displeasing to God, or so severely 
 punished, as idolatry; it was, as I have said, treason under 
 the Theocracy. In the days of our forefathers it was as a crime 
 against man, rather than as a sin against God, that witchcraft 
 was held to be punishable. It was the crime of men in 
 compact with the devil, or using incantations for malignant 
 purposes ; it was the use of the black arts for the perpetration 
 of black deeds, for destroying life and property. The persons 
 who professed these arts, or claimed these powers, in those 
 times were regarded by the authorities very much as we at 
 present regard men who are found to have dynamite or other 
 dangerous substances in their possession, and for which they 
 cannot give a satisfactory account. This is the view that is 
 taken of witchcraft by the heathen in the New Hebrides and 
 elsewhere at the present time ; it is a crime imperilling the 
 safety of society. 
 
 There is this marked difference between the views of our 
 forefathers and those held in modern times. They looked 
 upon the danger as lying in the power possessed by those who 
 had the knowledge of secret incantations, and exercised that 
 knowledge for evil purposes. Modern theology and modern 
 science have successfully proved that the danger lies wholly in 
 the superstitious fears of those against whom these arts are 
 practised. If they have no superstitious fears the incantations 
 are perfectly harmless. If they are possessed with superstitious 
 fears, like the natives of the New Hebrides, the likelihood 
 is that the incantation will be injurious, probably fatal. In- 
 cantations are like certain diseases, or certain states of the 
 atmosphere, that have no effect upon healthy constitutions,
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 31 
 
 but are injurious or fatal to those whose constitutions are 
 weak ; with this important difference, that, in the case of 
 those diseases, the state of the body is the chief, but not the 
 sole, cause of their taking effect or not ; but in the case of witch- 
 craft it is the imagination alone that kills or saves. Bryant 
 and May's safety matches will not ignite unless you strike them 
 against the prepared portion of the box; so those incantations 
 were powerless, except when they were practised upon people 
 filled with superstitious fears ; but on such the results were 
 more or less fatal or injurious. They are powerless with us ; 
 because the superstitious fears are awanting. It is Bryant 
 and May's matches without the prepared box ; they will not 
 ignite. Our forefathers believed that there was a positive, 
 supernatural, Satanic power possessed by the sorcerer, and 
 exercised by him through his incantations; they took no 
 account of the superstitious fear. On the other hand we 
 know that the case is reversed. But, nevertheless, although 
 they acted ignorantly in punishing those who profess to 
 practise witchcraft, in order that they might protect society, 
 the punishments which they inflicted, no doubt, restrained the 
 evil to a great extent, and tended to the protection of life and 
 property. But, in these completely altered times of ours, it is 
 as unjust to blame our forefathers for the burning of witches, 
 as it would be to blame them for inflicting capital punish- 
 ment for twenty other crimes, for all of which the penalty 
 is now removed from the criminal list, and blotted out of the 
 statute-book. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands, that in the ancient systems of 
 witchcraft, whether in Greece and Rome, in Egypt or in the 
 far east, as well as among our forefathers, imposture, as well 
 as superstition, came largely into play. It is so in the New
 
 32 WITCHCRAFT FROM 
 
 Hebrides and elsewhere. The sacred men are cunning as 
 well as superstitious, impostors as well as wizards. I knew a 
 Maori priest in New Zealand who used to go to the missionary 
 for medicine for a sick man ; this he carefully administered 
 till the patient was nearly well ; he then removed him to a 
 sacred enclosure, took a branch from a consecrated tree, 
 dipped it in holy water, and with the water sprinkled the 
 man's head, pronouncing over him certain cabalistic words. 
 He then declared him healed, and the man brought him a 
 large present for the cure. 
 
 On some islands in the New Hebrides when a native is 
 attacked with acute rheumatic or other pains, it is supposed 
 that an evil spirit has entered into him, and is tormenting 
 him. A sacred man, whose office it is to exorcise spirits, is 
 sent for. On his arrival he examines the man, and causes 
 him to lie down on a mat with his face to the ground ; he 
 performs various incantations over him, sings certain songs, 
 and repeats certain prayers. He then rubs him, and sham- 
 poos him, and applies heated stones to the most painful 
 parts; then he takes a sacred leaf, gesticulates with it, and 
 calls upon the spirit to come out of the man ; then draws his 
 hand across the man's shoulder, lifts it up, opens it in pre- 
 sence of the assembled people, and there is the spirit in the 
 form of a live lizard, which had been concealed in the leaf ! 
 If the patient speedily recovers, a large pig is sent as pay- 
 ment for the cure; if no improvement takes place, some 
 excuse is easily invented to cover the failure. 
 
 There is one important difference between the witchcraft 
 of the Bible, the witchcraft of this country in former times, 
 and the witchcraft of the New Hebrides. In Bible times 
 women, as well as men, practised sorcery and used enchant-
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 33 
 
 merits. In this country it was chiefly women, and those 
 poor old women, who were credited with these supernatural 
 powers. But in the New Hebrides these powers belong 
 exclusively to the men. When we went to Aneityum there 
 was one young woman who was regarded as a kind of vestal 
 virgin, and who performed some ceremonies at feasts, but 
 she was not recognised as having any power to cause sickness 
 or death. There was plenty of dancing on Aneityum in 
 heathen times; they danced nine months in the year; but 
 a "dance o' witches" was a thing that the wildest poetic 
 fancy would never have dreamed of. Of no woman in the 
 New Hebrides could it ever have been said, as of Tarn o' 
 Shanter's Nannie 
 
 ' ' For mony a beast to dead she shot, 
 And perished mony a bonnie boat, 
 And shook baith meikle corn and bere, 
 And kept the country-side in fear." 
 
 In the islands it is the men, and the important men only, 
 who are believed to possess supernatural power, and direct 
 supernatural operations : according to the popular belief it is 
 those only who are in league with the devil ; who bring on 
 diseases and cause death ; who raise epidemics and send forth 
 the pestilence ; who shake the earth, convulse the sea, and 
 agitate the air; who cause the thunders to roar, and the 
 forked lightnings to issue from the clouds; who raise the 
 tempests, and command the hurricanes that spread desolation 
 over sea and land. Hence it is some man like Balaam, and 
 not a woman like the Witch of Endor, who is consulted and 
 called in to curse enemies, or tell the fate of battles; it 
 is some man like Manasseh, and not a woman like Jezebel, 
 who uses enchantments, practises witchcraft, and deals with
 
 34 WITCHCRAFT FROM 
 
 familiar spirits; it is some man like Simon Magus, and not 
 a woman like the Pythoness of Philippi, who bewitches the 
 people and secures gain by soothsaying; they are some men 
 like Jannes and Jambres, and not simply the wise women, who 
 withstand the missionaries and counteract their efforts ; it is 
 some men like Elymas the Sorcerer, and not some women like 
 Herodias and Salome, who turn away the deputies or the 
 chiefs from the faith, and cease not to pervert the right ways 
 of the Lord. With them men are everything, women are 
 nothing. It shows the position long assigned to women in 
 this country, when they are credited with the power of the 
 supernatural. In those heathen isles they have no such 
 position assigned to them. There is no woman in those 
 islands, whether young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, 
 that is eligible to be a witch ! 
 
 With a certain class of people it was believed that the 
 inhabitants of those islands, at least when the islands were 
 discovered, were living in a state of Arcadian simplicity ; that 
 those children of nature were the happiest beings on earth ; 
 that their lives were innocent as those of childhood ; with few 
 wants, and those amply supplied by the bounties of providence ; 
 and that they were objects of envy, but not of pity. This is 
 a very great mistake. Our greatest blessings when perverted 
 become our greatest curses. True religion is the greatest 
 blessing that is enjoyed by man, the source of his highest 
 happiness ; but false religion is one of the greatest curses to 
 which he can be exposed, the source of his greatest misery. 
 Perhaps the worst element in the heathenism of the New 
 Hebrides is the system of witchcraft that exists among them. 
 It is a fearful bondage. It keeps the people under something 
 like a reign of terror. According to the popular creed, earth,
 
 A MISSIONARY POINT OF VIEW. 35 
 
 and air, and ocean, are teeming with spirits, all of them 
 malignant they have no beneficent deities, and the sacred 
 men are supposed to have full power over all the malignity of 
 the unseen world, and can direct it against whomsoever they 
 may think fit. Hence every one lives more or less in terror. 
 When Christianity was universally accepted on Aneityum, and 
 the power of the sacred men had ceased, as it certainly did 
 cease, the change to the people was marvellous. Men breathed 
 a different atmosphere. They all felt, if not the highest form 
 of liberty, the truly spiritual, at least a foretaste of this liberty. 
 In a very palpable sense they were all brought out of darkness 
 into light j and from the power of Satan unto God ; from the 
 bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of God's chil- 
 dren. On this account Christianity, as drawn directly from 
 the Bible, is the greatest gift that can be conferred upon them, 
 the choicest blessing they can possibly receive.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GIDEON'S SOLDIERS LAPPING WATER AS A DOG LAPPETII. 
 
 " So he brought down the -people unto the water : and the Lord said 
 unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a 
 dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself ; likewise every one that 
 boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that 
 lapped putting their hand to their mouth were three hundred men : 
 but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink 
 water." JUDGES vii. 5, 6. 
 
 I NEVER understood these two verses till I went to Aneityum. 
 In this country we never lap water like a dog ; and when we 
 put our hand to our mouth, we make a cup of the palm of our 
 hand, and drink as if it were out of a small cup, in no way 
 resembling the lapping of a dog : but these men lapped not 
 with their tongue like a dog, but putting their hand to their 
 mouth. However, shortly after I went to Aneityum I saw 
 what appeared to me to give a satisfactory solution of the 
 difficulty. I was standing one day by the side of a stream 
 where it was crossed by a path : a native came hurrying along, 
 but he stopped to drink ; he did not, however, bow down 
 upon his knees as most people do among us, who wish to drink 
 heartily, nor did he lift the water to his mouth with his hand 
 formed cup-like as we do ; but he stooped till his head was 
 within eighteen inches or so of the water; then he began to 
 throw up the water into his mouth with his hand as fast as a 
 dog could lap ; and he looked, as near as might be, like 
 a dog lapping. I said at once to myself, that is the way
 
 GIDEONS SOLDIERS. 37 
 
 Gideon's soldiers lapped. I had an opportunity scores of 
 times afterwards, of seeing the natives drink in the same 
 way ; and I observed that, as a general rule, it was the strong, 
 the vigorous, and the energetic who drank water in this way ; 
 never the feeble, the lazy, or the easy-going ; and the inference 
 that I drew respecting God's intentions towards Gideon and 
 his army was this. The Lord wished to select the very best 
 men in that army, and with them to accomplish the deliver- 
 ance of Israel. Moreover, this selection was to be made in 
 such a way, that those not chosen could have no ground of 
 offence against Gideon, and hence could not be thrown into 
 antagonism. The proclamation to depart before day of all 
 who were fearful and afraid, relieved the army of 22,000 
 faint-hearted soldiers, leaving 10,000 men, presumably all 
 mighty men of valour. But the Lord said that these were 
 still too many for His purpose, and another test was named. 
 The men were all to be taken to the water, and according to 
 their mode of drinking they were to be divided. The Well 
 of Harod was at hand, " gushing from the rocks which form 
 the basis of Mount Gilboa." "It supplies a pool of clear 
 water," says Canon Tristram, " fifty feet in diameter, and at 
 this pool there is room for a large number to drink together." 
 Here, then, Gideon must have tested his men. All the 10,000 
 except 300 bowed down upon their knees to drink. But the 
 300 lapped like a dog, putting their hand to their mouth. 
 The Lord promised to Gideon that by those 300 He would 
 deliver Israel. And, judging from what I have seen on 
 Aneityum, I would infer that they were the very elite of the 
 whole army, for courage, strength, activity, coolness, and the 
 power of endurance ; men who knew not the meaning of fear, 
 and were totally ignorant of faint-heartedness ; men who
 
 38 .GIDEON'S SOLDIERS. 
 
 possessed in the highest degree every soldier-like qualification ; 
 men like the Gadites that joined David when he was in the 
 hold, who could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were 
 like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the 
 mountains, and of whom it might be said, as David sung of 
 Saul and Jonathan, "they were swifter than eagles, they 
 were stronger than lions." 
 
 While God was delivering Israel miraculously, the task He 
 had appointed for these 300 men required special qualifica- 
 tions ; hence there was nothing arbitrary in this apparently 
 simple mode of selecting the valiant 300 ; it was a means, 
 though never employed, so far as we know, either before or 
 since, that fully secured the end. By a principle of natural 
 selection, which man would never have thought of, it secured 
 the survival of the fittest. It was only men after the type 
 of David's mighties that could have accomplished the work 
 they were called upon to perform. When the three com- 
 panies surrounded the camp, broke their pitchers, held 
 their lamps, blew their trumpets, and cried, " The sword of 
 the Lord and of Gideon," it was needful that their voices 
 should be like the voices of lions, to strike terror into the 
 hearts of their enemies ; and when, hungry and weary, they 
 went up by the way of them that dwelt in tents, on the coast 
 of Nobah and Jogbehah, and smote the host of 15,000 men 
 in Karkor, when the host was secure, it was necessary that, 
 like Asahel, they should be light of foot as a wild roe ; hence 
 their appearance was unexpected and terrific, and their 
 enemies fled; and when they tore the flesh of the princes 
 of Succoth with the thorns of the wilderness, and rased to 
 its foundation the tower of Penuel, in which the nobles 
 trusted, they were found in all these cases to be men of such
 
 LAPPING WATER AS A DOG LAPPETH. 39 
 
 powers, that, according to God's promise, five of them could 
 chase a hundred, and a hundred of them could put ten 
 thousand to flight, for they were God's elect, and filled with 
 His Spirit. 
 
 Since writing the above I observe that Dr. Kitto, in his 
 note on this passage in his Pictorial Bible, has observed the 
 same practice in the East. His remarks are so much to the 
 point that I cannot do better than quote them. He says : 
 "These two modes of action have been differently understood, 
 and the first (the lapping) in particular has been the subject 
 of various interpretations. The dog drinks by shaping the 
 end of his long thin tongue into the form of a spoon, which 
 it rapidly introduces into, and withdraws from, the water, 
 throwing each time a spoonful of the fluid into his mouth. 
 The tongue of man is not adapted to this use, and it is physi- 
 cally impossible for a man, therefore, to lap, literally, as a 
 dog laps. The true explanation, probably, is that these men, 
 instead of kneeling down to take a long draught, or successive 
 draughts, from the water, employed their hands as the dog 
 employs its tongue that is, forming it into a hollow spoon, 
 and dipping water with it from the stream. We have often 
 seen it done, and the comparison to the lapping of a dog 
 spontaneously occurred to our mind. Practice gives a peculiar 
 tact in this mode of drinking, and the interchange of the hand 
 between the water and the mouth is so rapidly managed as 
 to be comparable to that of the dog's tongue in similar circum- 
 stances. Besides, the water is not usually sucked out of the 
 hand into the mouth, but, by a peculiar knack, is jerked into 
 the mouth before the hand is brought close to it, so that the 
 hand is approaching with a fresh supply almost before the 
 preceding has been swallowed ; this is another resemblance
 
 4O GIDEONS SOLDIEES. 
 
 to the action of a dog's tongue. When travelling with small 
 caravans, we have had opportunities of seeing both processes." 
 He then shows that those knelt down to drink who had 
 plenty of time, but that those to whom time was an object 
 lapped like a dog; and concludes by saying, " This explana- 
 tion may help to show how the distinction operated, and why 
 those who 'lapped, putting their hand to their mouth,' were 
 considered to evince an alacrity and readiness for action 
 which peculiarly fitted them for the service on which Gideon 
 was engaged." 
 
 Thus both the Antipodes and the Orient supply testimony 
 as to the minute accuracy of the Scripture narrative; so 
 that by the mouth of at least two witnesses every word of the 
 Bible may be established.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHIBBOLETH VEESUS SIBBOLETH. 
 
 " And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraim- 
 ites : and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped 
 said, Let me go over ; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou 
 an Ephraimite ? If he said, Nay ; then said they unto him, Say now 
 Shibboleth ; and he said, Sibboleth : for he could not frame to pronounce 
 it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan." 
 JUDGES xii. 5, 6. 
 
 THE Gileadites, a portion of the half-tribe of Manasseh, had 
 lived for 300 years on the east side of the Jordan, and had 
 retained, as far as the sound of this word was concerned, the 
 original Hebrew pronunciation ; but the Ephraimites, living 
 for the same length of time on the west side of the river, had 
 lost entirely the old original sound, and had adopted a softer, 
 smoother pronunciation. In all living languages changes of 
 this kind are continually going on. The Gileadites were a 
 pastoral people, inhabiting a mountainous country, and living 
 remote from cities : hence their language would be the Doric 
 of Israel, and they would retain the strong primitive pro- 
 nunciation. The Ephraimites lived in the very centre of 
 Canaan, and, next to the tribe of Judah, were the leading tribe 
 in Israel. And up to this time the ark, the one central altar,- 
 and the tabernacle were at Shiloh, within the boundaries of the 
 tribe of Ephraim. This city was the residence of the leading 
 priests ; it was the leading centre of religion, literature, and
 
 42 SHIBBOLETH VERSUS SIBBOLETH. 
 
 civilization : hence the Ephraimites would naturally take a 
 first place for refinement in speech and manners, and thus 
 the stronger and rougher sound would become softer and more 
 mellifluous sh would become s; the letter shin would 
 become samech. This would be the new and fashionable 
 pronunciation; and it had become adopted by the whole 
 tribe. The word Shibboleth means, first, an ear of corn, and 
 next, a river. The crossing of the river would soon lead to the 
 use of the word by the Ephraimites ; the Gileadites would 
 soon observe their pronunciation of the word, and thus 
 secure an easy test for discovering their enemies. The 
 Ephraimites, not knowing the Gileadite pronunciation, and 
 not suspecting the use to be made of their answer, would 
 easily fall into the trap thus laid for them. Sh is such a 
 common sound with us, we have from 300 to 400 words in 
 the English language commencing with sh, to say nothing 
 of its frequent occurrences in the middle and end of words ; 
 and with our organs of speech the sound is so easily pronounced 
 that we can hardly understand how any difficulty can be felt 
 in its pronunciation. But I may remark that sh is not a 
 common sound. So far as is known to me, the sound of sh is 
 found in no language spoken in the South Seas. Certainly it is 
 found in none of the dialects of the Malay- Polynesian language. 
 It is not found in the Maori, the Samoan, the Tongan, the Raro- 
 tongan, the Tahitian, nor the Hawaiian. It is not in the Fijian 
 language, it is not in the Aneityumese ; and, so far as I have 
 observed, it is not found in any other of the Papuan languages. 
 Dr. Kitto observes that sh is a very difficult sound to acquire 
 by those who have not learned it in childhood ; and hence the 
 Ephraimites were unable to pronounce it, and evasion or 
 escape from this test became impossible. We found this the
 
 SHIBBOLETH VERSUS S1BBOLETH. 43 
 
 case on Aneityum. The sound of sk is not found in the 
 language; and the natives did not seem capable of acquiring the 
 power to pronounce it. They never could pronounce English 
 words containing this sound. The nearest they could come to 
 shirt, ship, sheep, sheet, &c., was sirt, sip, seep, and seet. So 
 that had the Aneityumese been with the Ephraimites on that 
 memorable day, every one of them would have been slain at 
 the fords of the Jordan ; for not one of them could have said 
 Shibboleth, every one of them would have said Sibboleth. 
 
 But we have a parallel case among ourselves. No English- 
 man can pronounce ch and gh as they are pronounced in 
 Scotland. Ask an Englishman to say loch, and he says lolc. 
 Ask him to say Waugh, and he says Wa ; or ask him to say 
 Gouyli, and he says Goff. 
 
 But this process of change, such as that which took place 
 among the Ephraimites we see going on daily under our own 
 eyes in the South Sea Islands. As I have said the Malay- 
 Polynesians have not sh ; but except in one principal group, 
 viz., that of Samoa, and two or three small groups, they have 
 not even s. In all the other groups they use h instead of s ; 
 thus tasi, one, in Samoan, becomes tahi, one, in Maori, and soa, 
 a friend, becomes hoa. And not only do they use the h 
 instead of the s, but they cannot pronounce s; the nearest 
 that a Maori can come to sixpence, is to say Jiikapene. And 
 in the early stages of the New Zealand colony, one of the 
 common jokes played upon the Maories by waggish paltelias, 
 or white people, was to offer a native a tempting reward, if 
 he would say, split a sixpence ; and then to laugh at him 
 in his hopeless attempts to pronounce the sentence. The 
 Gileadites could not have devised a surer test to discover 
 an Ephraimite than by asking him to say Shibboleth ; for
 
 44 SHIBBOLETH VERSUS SIBBOLETH. 
 
 it was a physical impossibility for him to do so. The 
 narrative is not a myth or a fiction, it is true to the first 
 principles of language. 
 
 For three hundred years we have adopted Shibboleth as an 
 English word, equivalent to test. And every party, both 
 political and religious, has had its Shibboleth; its party 
 test; some word or formula which expressed its distinctive 
 principle, and hence every man who had the courage of his 
 convictions and could not in conscience pronounce this Shib- 
 boleth, was according to the temper of the times, deprived of 
 office, or place, or emolument, or privilege, or liberty, or life 
 itself. Its operation has been good when it excluded the 
 evil ; but the reverse, as has often been the case, when it cut 
 off the good.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SAMSON AND THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 
 
 "But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat har- 
 vest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid ; and he said, I will go in 
 to my wife into the chamber : but her father would not suffer him to 
 go in. And her father said, I verily thought that thou hadst utterly 
 hated her ; therefore I gave her to thy companion : is not her younger 
 sister fairer than she ? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And 
 Samson said concerning them, Now shall I be more blameless than the 
 Philistines, though I do them a displeasure. And Samson went and 
 caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, 
 and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails. And when he had 
 set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the 
 Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, 
 with the vineyards and olives. Then the Philistines said, Who hath 
 done this ? And they answered, Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, 
 because he had taken his wife, and given her to his companion. And 
 the Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire." 
 JUDGES xv. 1-6. 
 
 " So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the 
 king's face. Therefore Absalom sent for Joab, to have sent him to the 
 king ; but he would not come to him: and when he sent again the 
 second time, he would not come. Therefore he said unto his servants, 
 See, Joab's field is near mine, and he hath barley there ; go and set it 
 on fire. And Absalom's servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose, 
 and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore 
 have thy servants set my field on fire ? And Absalom answered Joab, 
 Behold, I sent unto thee, saying, Come hither, that I may send thee to 
 the king, to say, Wherefore am I come from Geshur ? it had been good 
 for me to have been there still : now therefore let me see the king's 
 face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me. So Joab 
 came to the king, and told him." 2 SAMUEL xiv. 28-33. 
 
 "And when he (the Levite) was come into his house, he took a knife, 
 and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her
 
 46 SAMSON AND 
 
 bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. 
 And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done 
 nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the 
 land of Egypt unto this day : consider of it, take advice, and speak 
 your minds. Then all the children of Israel went out and gathered as 
 one man unto the Lord in Mizpeh, four hundred thousand footmen. 
 Then said the children of Israel, Tell us, how was this wickedness? 
 And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered 
 and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my 
 concubine, to lodge. And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and 
 beset the house round about me by night, and thought to have slain 
 me; and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead. And I 
 took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all 
 the country of the inheritance of Israel; for they have committed 
 lewdness and folly in Israel. Behold, ye are all the children of Israel ; 
 give here your advice and counsel. JUDGES xix. 29, 30, and xx. 1-7. 
 
 " And the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard those tidings, 
 and his anger was kindled greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and 
 hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of 
 Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, Whosoever cometh not forth 
 after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. And 
 the fear of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out with one 
 consent. And when he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel 
 were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand." 
 i SAMUEL xi. 6-8. 
 
 WHEN Samson's father-in-law had taken his wife and given 
 her to another man, Samson did not remonstrate with him, 
 or threaten him with legal proceedings. Neither did he go 
 to the judge at Timnath, and cry, like the importunate widow, 
 Avenge me of mine adversary. Such a course he no doubt 
 regarded as unavailing. Neither did he, like the Strome Ferry 
 rioters of our own time, violate the human law in order to 
 vindicate the divine. In seeking redress he kept strictly 
 within constitutional lines, within use and wont, within the 
 law of the land. Hence when, on a beautiful harvest morn- 
 ing, the Philistines looked out and saw nothing for miles 
 around but one unbroken conflagration, fields of wheat, vine-
 
 THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 47 
 
 yards, and olive-yards all crackling and blazing, or black, 
 charred, and reduced to ashes, and when to the inquiry, 
 Who hath done this ? the answer was returned, Samson, the 
 son-in-law of the Timnite, because he had taken his wife and 
 given her to his companion, the authorities did not do as 
 ours would have done, send out a strong body of police to 
 apprehend and imprison the incendiary, they found no fault 
 with Samson. But when the elders of the land met and took 
 their seats in the gate of Timnath, they agreed unanimously, 
 and at once, that the Timnite and his daughter should suffer 
 for Samson's crime. And the punishment was summary, for 
 before night, after the manner of the Philistines, they were 
 both burned with fire. 
 
 A hundred and twenty-five years afterwards we find 
 Absalom acting on the same principle towards Joab. Once 
 and again Absalom sends a messenger to Joab, asking Joab 
 to visit him. But Joab, on the way back from Geshur, had 
 evidently discovered the character, principles, and aims of 
 Absalom, and had therefore no wish to introduce him to the 
 court, that with David's other sons he should be a chief 
 ruler; and hence refused to visit Absalom. Upon this 
 Absalom does not write him a letter of remonstrance, or 
 call upon himself, as we might have done, and reproach him 
 for want of friendship or courtesy ; but he at once sends his 
 servants to burn Joab's field of barley; and this brought to 
 him the commander-in-chief, and secured the interview which 
 he so much desired, and Joab accepted his explanation as to 
 the burning of the barley. 
 
 Now this is not our way of doing things ; but such things 
 as these are common occurrences on Aneityum ; they are 
 part of the common law of the land, a necessary part of their
 
 48 SAMSON AND 
 
 criminal and ordinary jurisprudence. If a native finds him- 
 self aggrieved, lie does not go to the offender and expostulate 
 with him, nor does he go to the chief and lodge an information 
 against the offender, but he goes and commits some injury on 
 some one's property, either on the offender's or on somebody's 
 else, as the case may be, in order to arouse public attention, 
 and to lead people to inquire, Who has done this ? and for 
 what purpose has it been done 1 In this way publicity is 
 given to the grievance, and public sympathy is secured for 
 the aggrieved ; the evil is redressed, and the aggrieved man 
 is satisfied. Had the injured man complained to the chief, 
 his complaint might have been neglected. But when public 
 opinion is brought to bear strongly on a grievance, redress 
 is almost sure to follow. The natives resort now and again 
 to this mode of redress in all matters, from the most trifling 
 to the most important. On one occasion I found a fine bunch 
 of bananas cut down in my garden, and left lying on the 
 ground, not stolen. On inquiring who had done this, I found 
 that it had been done by a young lad who had once lived on 
 our premises. When I sent for him he never denied the 
 deed ; and when I asked him why he had done this " I did 
 it," he said, " because So-and-so " two lads living with us 
 " had said so-and-so about me, which was not true, and so broke 
 my heart; and I did this that you might ask me about it, 
 and reprove them." But I said, "Why did not you come to 
 me and tell me about it yourself ? " " Oh," said he, " tup 
 netho unyima nigki " this is our custom this is our way of 
 doing things. 
 
 On another occasion the proprietor of a whaling establish- 
 ment sent me a letter, telling me that N , a native who 
 
 lived about a mile from my station, had stolen a musket from
 
 THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 49 
 
 a white man in his employment, and asking me to assist him 
 in recovering it. I sent for the man, and inquired about 
 the stealing of the musket. He never denied the theft ; yea, 
 he seemed rather desirous that publicity should be given to 
 the fact. When I asked him why he had stolen the musket, he 
 frankly said : " You know that last year I had charge of one 
 of the whale-boats ; but this year Mr. So-and-so has taken it 
 from me, and given it to another man, which was not fair to 
 me. It broke my heart ; I was angry, and I stole the musket, 
 that they might send after me and inquire, and then I could 
 tell how badly I had been used." The musket was returned, 
 but the object was gained. The community were thus made 
 
 aware of 1ST 's grievances; public opinion was freely 
 
 expressed in his favour, and the young man's heart was 
 relieved and comforted. 
 
 On another occasion one of our very best natives, who had 
 been living, both he and his wife, for a long time on our 
 premises, supplied another example of this custom. He had 
 been acting as cook, and his wife as housemaid. He had 
 given great satisfaction ; but all at once he began to act very 
 strangely. My wife could not comprehend him ; her patience 
 became quite worn out with him ; and one day she said to me, 
 " I do wish you would speak to So-and-so. I do not know what 
 is come over him of late, he acts so strangely. He never 
 actually refuses to do what I bid him, but he turns his back 
 to me when I speak to him, and scarcely ever gives me a civil 
 answer; and this morning, while his wife was passing the 
 kitchen door, he threw a stone at her, and struck her on the 
 head. It looks to me as if he were going out of his mind." I 
 then took the native into my study, and asked him what the 
 meaning of this conduct was, so different from all his past
 
 50 SAMSON AND 
 
 conduct. "Oh," said he, "I wanted you to ask me. You 
 know that I have been a long time about this house, and I am 
 anxious for a change. I would like if you would appoint me to 
 be a teacher somewhere." I said, "If that is all there will be 
 no difficulty. If you go on with your work here, and wait for 
 three months, till I am changing the teachers, I will then 
 appoint you to a school. But," said I, "why did you not 
 come and tell me that you wanted a change ? " " Oh, this is 
 our way of doing things," he said " Ek atimi imtita atimi 
 ainyak " " I am a very timid man, and I did not like to speak ; 
 but I did these things that you might ask me." He resumed 
 his work, and gave us entire satisfaction, and at the end of 
 three months I appointed him to be a teacher. 
 
 I have known a man, whose wife had proved unfaithful to him, 
 actually go and live with some worthless woman, not from any 
 love of the woman, but simply to call public attention to the 
 conduct of his own wife, and to evoke public sympathy for 
 himself in connection with his domestic troubles. 
 
 After we found out this custom we had no difficulties with 
 the natives about it. In the first years of the mission we 
 were often puzzled with the conduct of natives; they were 
 sullen, and wayward, and troublesome, and we knew not what 
 was the matter with them ; but after we discovered the 
 existence of this custom, when any native began to act in any 
 strange sort of way, especially if he was living on or near the 
 mission premises, I at once took him into my study, and asked 
 him, in as kindly a tone as possible, as to who or what had 
 broken his heart. Sometimes he would own to nothing, and 
 then I talked seriously, but not angrily, to him for acting 
 thus, and generally with good results ; but if it was owing to 
 something that somebody had said or done, the grievance was
 
 THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 51 
 
 inquired into, the injured man was satisfied, and the matter 
 ended. 
 
 In a rude or corrupt state of society, where judges have 
 little fear of God, and little regard for man ; where the strong 
 arm of the law and the firm hand of justice can be put into 
 motion only with extreme difficulty; when it requires a 
 strong expression of public opinion, and an open display of 
 public sympathy, before the redress of any serious grievance 
 can be obtained, this mode of proceeding has many obvious 
 advantages ; and no doubt was resorted to on that account, 
 though not for a moment to be thought of in a country like 
 ours. Had Samson laid his grievance before any one of the 
 Lords of the Philistines, it is doubtful if the slightest atten- 
 tion would have been paid to his complaint. "A family 
 squabble," he would have said; "go and settle it among 
 yourselves." But when a whole country-side rose up burning 
 with anger to inquire into the cause of this incendiarism, the 
 Lords of the Philistines were suddenly aroused to a sense 
 of their danger, and retribution swift and terrible overtook 
 the delinquents. Joab's political sagacity discovered the 
 danger to the state that lurked in the fair face, the smooth 
 tongue, and the comely person of Absalom, and his aim was 
 to keep him from the court as long as possible; hence 
 Absalom might have sent twenty messengers to Joab instead 
 of two, without securing a visit from him. But when all 
 Jerusalem knew that Absalom's servants had burnt Joab's 
 field of barley, it was at once known that Absalom had some 
 serious grievance against Joab, and the cautious statesman 
 found that his Fabian tactics, his masterly inactivity, his do 
 nothing policy, would no longer serve his purpose, that at 
 whatever hazard he must visit the irrepressible and popular
 
 52 SAMSON AND 
 
 prince. The Levite might have gone to Shiloh and repre- 
 sented his wrong, both to Phinehas and to the whole college 
 of priests, but no redress would have been given him ; the 
 arm of justice was weak. There was not only no king, but 
 no judge in Israel at that time. Joshua was dead, and 
 Othniel had not been called to office. But when the mes- 
 sengers went through all the twelve tribes of Israel, and 
 exhibited the mangled fragments of the Levite's concubine 
 to the elders of every city as they sat in the gate, a universal 
 shudder was felt ; they all knew that some terrible crime had 
 been committed, and the Israelites, from Dan to Beersheba, 
 came up as one man to Mizpeh. It was on lines of policy 
 similar to this that Saul acted when he slew the yoke of oxen, 
 hewed them in pieces, and sent them through all the coasts 
 of Israel ; the people recognised under this action the terrible 
 danger to which the nation was exposed, and a unanimous 
 and instant response was given to the summons sent to them in 
 the name of Samuel and of Saul. The Midlothian Campaign 
 of Mr. Gladstone, in 1880, which overturned the Beaconsfield 
 government, was as nothing compared with the action of the 
 Levite and of the newly anointed king : the oratory of Glad- 
 stone, in its effects, was like the striking of a lucifer match ; 
 the actions of these two men, in their results, were like 
 explosions of dynamite. 
 
 But some may say that the cases I have adduced from the 
 customs on Aneityum are trifling compared with those I have 
 referred to in the Bible. This is quite true. But then the 
 same laws, that regulate the form and movements of a drop 
 of water, operate equally on the whole ocean. Such cases as 
 those I have selected from the Bible could not occur on 
 Aneityum; the people are too few, and the time I have
 
 THE FOXES AND FIREBRANDS, ETC. 53 
 
 referred to, only a quarter of a century, is too short, whereas 
 from the time of the Levite till that of Joab and Absalom 
 was a period of nearly 500 years. While the cases recorded 
 in the sacred narrative were typical as regarded the customs, 
 they were exceptional in degree, and not of everyday occur- 
 rence. It was not every night that the wife of a stranger, 
 a Levite, a minister of the sanctuary, on his way to the 
 house of God, was forcibly taken from him, abused, and mur- 
 dered, in the public streets of one of the principal cities of 
 Israel while the elders took no notice of the crime. It was 
 not every day that a judge of Israel, of the type of Samson, 
 impulsive and irrepressible, had his newly married wife taken 
 from him and given to another man, while the authorities 
 never once inquired into the case. It was not every day, 
 when a king had been newly anointed over God's people, 
 that the king of Ammon laid siege to one of their principal 
 cities, and through the elders of that city sent a reproachful 
 taunt to all Israel. And it was not every day that there was 
 a rupture between the favourite son of the king and the 
 commander of all the forces of Israel. But it is only such 
 cases as these that are put in record by the sacred writers. 
 The custom, however, was no doubt in constant existence, and 
 minor cases of it would be of daily occurrence. Human 
 nature is the same in all ages; like causes produce like 
 effects; and like states of society will produce similar cus- 
 toms. The Bible is true to the principles of human nature ; 
 hence the most unlikely events, and the most incredible- 
 like statements, recorded in sacred history, can be paralleled 
 in the most unexpected quarters at the present day.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MICAH'S MOTHER CURSING. 
 
 " And there was a man of mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 
 And he said unto his mother, The eleven hundred shekels of silver that 
 were taken from thee, about which thou cursedst, and spakest of also 
 in mine ears, behold, the silver is with me ; I took it. And his mother 
 said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son." JUDGES xvii. i, 2. 
 
 THIS case of cursing is unique. So far as we remember no 
 other case of the kind is recorded in the Bible. But yet at 
 the end of 3300 years we find the very same practice existing 
 in the New Hebrides. 
 
 On one occasion my wife and I were on a visit to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Copeland, on Futuna, an island fifty miles north-east 
 of Aneityum. One morning at daylight we were awakened 
 by a tremendous shouting noise outside the mission premises, 
 and looking out we saw an elderly woman screaming at the 
 top of her voice, in the most angry tones. As the Futuna 
 language is totally different from the language spoken on 
 Aneityum, we did not understand what the woman was say- 
 ing ; we only heard that she was loud, angry, and terribly 
 in earnest. However, when we met our friends at breakfast, 
 for the sake of health always the first thing attended to in 
 the mission families on the islands, we learned that all this 
 excitement had been caused by some stealing during the night. 
 Some property had been taken, as Micah euphoniously ex- 
 pressed it in his mother's case, out of the woman's house
 
 MICAH'S MOTHER CURSING. 55 
 
 during the night, and as soon as she discovered her loss, as 
 the custom is on Futuna, she proclaimed it by cursing. With 
 all the power of voice that she could command, she was curs- 
 ing the thief; imploring every one of the Futuna gods to 
 pour down their most awful judgments on the head of the 
 poor culprit ; that so the offender, fearing the awful curses, 
 might restore the stolen goods. Ignorant and superstitious 
 people fear nothing so much as curses and imprecations of 
 this kind. In former times in this country, it was the fear 
 that their imprecations would be followed by judgments, that 
 gave reputed witches such power in levying blackmail, or in 
 securing good presents. In this case the woman cried loud 
 that they might hear her, and with intense earnestness that 
 they might fear her ; and she was successful, for before our 
 breakfast was over the stolen property was restored. The 
 scene was now totally changed, anger gave way to joy ; the 
 crime of stealing was entirely overlooked, and the warmest 
 blessings were invoked upon the head of the thief, because 
 the stolen property was returned. We have no such custom 
 as this on Aneityum ; but then the Aneityumese are Papuans, 
 descendants of Ham; whereas the Futunese are Malays, 
 descendants of Shem, the same as the Israelites. Micah's 
 mother had evidently acted very much as they do on Futuna. 
 One morning when she rose, she found that the chest con- 
 taining her treasure had been broken open, and the bags 
 containing her 1 1 oo shekels of silver had been taken away. 
 An old divine says that " outward losses drive good people to 
 their prayers, but bad people to their curses." This is the 
 effect, as we see, among the heathen on Futuna, and Micah's 
 mother had strong heathen proclivities, she was like old clothes 
 tainted with the plague ; as good old Bishop Hall says of
 
 56 MICAH'S MOTHER CURSING. 
 
 her, " After all lier airing in the desert, she will still smell 
 of Egypt." So as soon as she discovers her loss, the curse 
 and not the prayer rises to her lips. So hastening to the 
 door, and lifting up her voice to its highest pitch, she awakens 
 the whole household. Micah starts from his bed, and her 
 words ring in his ears till both of them tingle, as she pours 
 forth against the unknown thief a string of maledictions, as 
 terrible as those contained in the 27th chapter of Deuteronomy. 
 Micah hearing those dreadful curses, and knowing his guilt, 
 was struck with more than superstitious fear, for his con- 
 science bore witness against him, and, dreading lest some 
 terrible judgment from God should overtake him, he went to 
 his mother and confessed the crime, and told her that the 
 eleven hundred shekels of silver, about which she had uttered 
 those dreadful curses, were with him, and that he would 
 restore them. The poor woman, like her sister on JFutuna, 
 as much overcome with joy as she had been carried away 
 with anger, pours forth her benedictions upon her son, utterly 
 forgetful of the theft, and thinking only of the restitution ; 
 and, as if afraid that her curses would take effect, she hastens 
 to intercept them, and says, " Blessed be thou of Jehovah, 
 my son." Some commentators think that Micah's mother 
 adjured her son, or put him to his oath about the money, 
 and thus extorted the confession from him; but as appears 
 to us, the custom on Futuna affords a much more natural 
 explanation. Thus in a rocky islet, " far amid the melan- 
 choly main," comes forth a witness for the historic truth and 
 accuracy of the Old Testament Scriptures. Even there " the 
 tenants of the rock, in accents rude," all unconsciously, bear 
 testimony to the truth of the inspired Record. Do they not 
 deserve the Bible in return for such a service ?
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A SINGLE FLEA. 
 
 " After whom is the king of Israel come out ? after whom dost thou 
 pursue? after a dead dog, after a, flea?" i SAMUEL xxiv. 14. 
 
 " For the king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth 
 hunt a partridge on the mountains." i SAMUEL xxvi. 20. 
 
 THIS is one of those slight allusions which clearly prove that 
 the Bible was written in the East. In this country one royal 
 personage speaking to another would never have employed 
 the illustration, which David once and again used in speaking 
 to Saul. But there the flea was so well known, that a refer- 
 ence to it was quite natural. In this country its name is 
 unmentionable in the hearing of ears polite. In the East 
 fleas are so plentiful and so well known, that Kitto says 
 even ladies have no delicacy in speaking openly about them 
 in public companies. Canon Tristram says, " Fleas are the 
 great pests both of the inhabitants and of travellers in the 
 Holy Land, and it is impossible to keep free from them. 
 They are the only vermin towards which the natives have 
 a thorough animosity, and which can disturb even Moslem 
 equanimity. Their numbers force the Bedouins to change 
 their camps more frequently than they otherwise would, and 
 if the luckless traveller incautiously pitches upon the site of 
 a camp which has been deserted even for a month, he is soon 
 driven away by the swarms of fleas, which rise from the dust
 
 58 A SINGLE FLEA. 
 
 and the refuse stubble on the ground, where they are con- 
 cealed in myriads." 
 
 In New Zealand, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and 
 in all the South Sea Islands fleas are one of the greatest 
 pests, so that one chief speaking to another as David did 
 to Saul would excite no surprise. As in the East even ladies 
 can talk about them and not be accused of vulgarity. When 
 we went first to New Zealand, one morning, shortly after our 
 settlement on the Manawatu river, on looking out, I was 
 shocked to see one of the principal chiefs of the district 
 standing with his blanket spread out on a fence before him, 
 and he himself busily engaged catching and killing fleas ! 
 But as time went on my sensibilities on this point became 
 very much blunted : such or similar exhibitions were far too 
 common to excite any surprise. These insects breed in the 
 ground, especially in the sand, and during certain months 
 in the year no amount of cleanliness can eradicate them, 
 although it can do much to keep them bearable. On 
 Aneityum, and I suppose it will be the same elsewhere, 
 about the month of November, when the weather becomes 
 warm and dry, it makes the place too hot for the fleas, and 
 they nearly disappear for some months. As in Palestine, 
 deserted houses soon become very much infested with these 
 vermin, and any person who unawares enters one of them, 
 comes out with quite a colony of fleas adhering to him. On 
 the other hand, when a native erects a new house, and gets 
 the floor covered with fresh, clean cocoa-nut mats, every 
 native in the neighbourhood wishes to come and sleep in that 
 house, it is for some weeks so comfortable. 
 
 There are two species of fleas on Aneityum ; a native and a 
 European. They are about the same size and the same colour,
 
 A SINGLE FLEA. 59 
 
 but quite distinct in appearance. The native flea has long 
 straddling hind-legs, and appears to belong rather to the 
 creeping than the "jumping cattle." The European flea is 
 a comparatively recent importation. It was brought to the 
 island in this way : One of the first vessels that anchored in 
 the harbour of Aneityum had a dog on board. A native stole 
 the dog, and carried it off inland : but unhappily he got more 
 than he bargained for ; he got the fleas which it harboured as 
 well as the dog ! and the fleas have remained, multiplied, and 
 increased ever since. It is curious how insect, as well as other 
 forms of life, are extended over the earth. One of the 
 Wesleyan missionaries told me that, when they went to 
 Tonga, there were no mosquitoes there; but on one occasion 
 when the missionaries were assembled at their annual con- 
 ference, one of them looked out at a window, and there was 
 a cloud of mosquitoes in front of the house. Whence they 
 came no one could tell. They had been wafted no doubt by 
 the wind from some other island or group. But they main- 
 tained their footing there ever after. 
 
 The existence of fleas in those islands is a fact, as in 
 Palestine, that cannot be ignored ; no prudent reserve can 
 conceal the fact that they are one of the household pests of 
 the South Seas. But although, while with native houses 
 and natives living as they do, it is extremely difficult to abate 
 the nuisance, yet in the mission-houses, by care, cleanliness, 
 and great activity, if they, cannot be quite extirpated, they 
 can at least be reduced to something like a " vanishing 
 quantity," and kept, something like the Canaanites of old, 
 under tribute ; and if still a living, yet not a reigning power, 
 occasionally irritating, but never dangerous neighbours. 
 
 But there are no bugs on the islands. If they do chance
 
 60 A SINGLE FLEA. 
 
 to be brought, as they sometimes are, by vessels, they are 
 immediately killed out by the cockroaches, a species of beetle 
 which buzzes but never bites any human being ; so that had 
 Mrs. Carlyle lived, not in Chelsea, but in the New Hebrides, 
 she might have had occasion to send out her maids to look 
 the bedclothes on the fences; but she would not have been 
 required to commence those energetic crusades against the 
 bugs in 5 Cheyne Row which she describes so graphically in 
 her letters. 
 
 Men of genius have the rare faculty of dignifying not only 
 humble, but even disgusting objects. When Burns proposed 
 publishing his "Address to a Louse, on Seeing one on a 
 Lady's Bonnet at Church," Mrs. Dunlop and all his lady friends 
 strongly opposed his intentions ; but genius prevailed over 
 prudence ; he published the poem, and criticism and posterity 
 have approved of his resolution. It was only a man of Lord 
 Beaconsfield's genius that could stand up in the House of 
 Lords, and tell that august assembly, that in comparison with 
 the enormous wealth of this country, the National Debt was 
 a mere flea bite, and thus convert an expression, otherwise 
 vulgar, to one of classical propriety. So it was the poet in 
 David, and not the prince, that seized this humble, and rather 
 coarse proverb, and, by the unconscious touch of his genius, 
 raised it up to dignity and elegance. He expressed his 
 humility in tones of honest genuine pathos, by comparing 
 himself, in the first instance, to a dead dog and a flea ; and 
 in the second to a partridge and a flea ; but on both occasions 
 the flea stands prominently out, as the object of comparison. 
 David was so harmless, and, in his own estimation, so despic- 
 able, that he says : " After whom is the king of Israel come 
 out ? " He is not come out in search of royal game ; he is not
 
 A SINGLE FLEA. 6 1 
 
 hunting lions or bears ; he is not even deer stalking ; he is 
 pursuing a dead dog, hunting a partridge upon the mountains ; 
 he is come out to seek a flea, a single flea. " A creature," 
 says Matthew Henry, " which (as some have observed), if it be 
 sought, is not easily found ; if it be found, is not easily caught ; 
 and if it be caught, is a poor prize, especially for a prince." 
 
 It is recorded to the disgrace of one of the late Roman 
 emperors, that he occupied a good part of his time in killing 
 flies with a bodkin, and that on one occasion, when a nobleman 
 asked one of the pages if the Emperor had any company in 
 his room, the page said : " No ! not even a single fly." 
 
 We smile at the game laws in Tahiti, and the royal hunts 
 as practised there before the introduction of Christianity. 
 In Ellis's " Polynesian Researches " a graphic picture exhibits 
 a view of royalty while enjoying this privilege. There were 
 no horses on the island; but when the king and queen 
 travelled, they were always carried on men's shoulders, with 
 their feet hanging down in front, over the breasts of the men 
 who were carrying them respectively; and they possessed 
 the exclusive privilege of hunting over the heads of the men ; 
 their heads were the royal preserves set apart as special 
 hunting ground for the king and queen of Tahiti, and they 
 were privileged to eat all the game that they caught. 
 
 The natives of Aneityum can employ low and undignified 
 comparisons, without intending or wishing to be vulgar, and 
 without really being so. One day my wife was giving a little 
 girl a lesson in the letters, and to see that she was not 
 learning them by rote, she began to try her on them crosswise, 
 by pointing to them in different directions. When she pointed 
 io j, as the pencil she was using was not very sharp, the girl 
 evidently was not sure whether she was pointing to /or to k, and
 
 62 A SINGLE FLEA. 
 
 said : " Do you mean the one with the fly dung on its head ? " 
 referring to the dot above the j. She afterwards found that 
 the girl's mother, when teaching her, had employed this 
 homely illustration to assist her memory; an illustration 
 original to us, but one of the most obvious to a native, 
 inasmuch as greatly to the annoyance of both natives and 
 foreign residents, at least those who have any responsibility 
 about cleaning, especially the cleaning of windows. Those 
 troublesome insects, wherever they alight, leave marks without 
 number, like the dots above the letters i and j, and which are 
 especially visible on glass. 
 
 Burns is the only poet who has immortalised a louse, and 
 fixed it as a gem in our national literature, "to point a 
 moral," while the verse, in which that lesson has been incul- 
 cated, has been perhaps more frequently quoted than any 
 other verse he ever wrote. Lord Beaconsfield is the only 
 orator who has immortalised a flea-bite, and left it to sparkle 
 as a classical proverb in all time to come, after having em- 
 ployed it as the most successful argument ever brought forth 
 in the defence of reckless and extravagant national expendi- 
 ture. And David was the only sacred writer who selected 
 the detested flea as an illustration, and by skilfully using it 
 once and again exorcised the evil spirit from the soul of Saul, 
 gave it a place in the pages of inspiration, and made it to be 
 a vehicle of spiritual instruction to all generations. Verily 
 God hath chosen the base things of the world, and things 
 which are despised, and things which are not, to bring to 
 nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in His 
 presence. 
 
 The flea seems still to cleave to the lips of Oriental princes. 
 When Tawhiao, the Maori king, was in this country, he was
 
 A SINGLE FLEA. 63 
 
 interviewed by one of the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 During the process his majesty fell asleep, much to the 
 chagrin of the interviewer. When he woke up, and found 
 his unwelcome visitor still there, Tawhiao said to the offended 
 journalist, " I say, sir, you are as troublesome as a flea, and 
 as persevering." " If the Maori monarch had been a fashion- 
 able wit of the last century," said a writer to the press, "he 
 could scarcely have turned out a neater epigram." It is 
 doubtful, however, if the interviewer, who had perhaps never 
 seen a flea in his life, would understand the force of the 
 simile ; he would certainly not do so as clearly as Saul under- 
 stood David. But this form of speech came easily and 
 naturally from the lips of Tawhiao ; and to any one who, like 
 myself, had lived eight years in New Zealand, and a good 
 part of that time in the interior, and who had slept many 
 a night in a Maori tvJtare, or native hut, and had known by 
 experience the habits of such bedfellows to such the illus- 
 tration, though homely, would seem pat and pithy. 
 
 General Gordon too could use the contemptible insect with 
 good effect. "When Sebastapol fell the Eussians," he said, 
 " carried off everything from the vile place, literally every- 
 thing, but rubbish and fleas."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GOING IN THE TOPS OF THE MULBERRY TREES. 
 
 "And the Philistines came up yet again, and spread themselves in 
 the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, 
 Thou shalt not go up ; but fetch a compass behind them, and come upon 
 them over against the mulberry-trees. And let it be, when thou hearest 
 the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou 
 shalt bestir thyself : for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite 
 the host of the Philistines. And David did as the Lord had commanded 
 him." 2 SAMUEL v. 22-25 > an ^ J CHKONICLES xiv. 13-16. 
 
 THE Hebrew word lecdtm, translated mulberry, is generally 
 understood now to be the same as our poplar or aspen tree. 
 "There is every reason to believe," says Dr. Tristram, "that 
 the mulberry here means the aspen." The eminently sound 
 and sagacious John Brown of Haddington, the first, and, 
 considering his advantages, the greatest of all the Browns, 
 says, " By a sound, made no doubt by angels, on the tops of 
 those trees in the valley of Rephaim, was David warned when 
 to attack the Philistines." This was a natural explanation a 
 hundred and more years ago. But there does not appear to us to 
 be any occasion for calling in angelic agency here ; no mention 
 is made of angels in the text, and the sound of a going might, 
 we think, be produced by ordinary agencies. We have no 
 wish to follow in the wake of the so-called higher criticism, 
 and eliminate the supernatural out of nearly every portion of 
 the Biblical narrative ; but neither have we any wish to call 
 in the supernatural where the natural appears, as in this case, 
 to be sufficient. God is ever sparing in His putting forth of
 
 GOING IN THE TOPS OF THE MULBERRY TREES. 65 
 
 miraculous or supernatural energy. Although He " is free to 
 work," as the Westminster Confession says, " without, above, 
 and against means, at His pleasure; yet, in His ordinary 
 providence, He maketh use of them." According to the most 
 approved translation, Psalm civ. 4, " Who maketh His angels 
 spirits ; " should be rendered, " Who maketh winds His angels 
 or messengers." Now, as appears to us, winds were quite 
 sufficient, under the ordinary providence of God, to cause the 
 sound of a going to be heard in the tops of the trees. I have 
 read somewhere, though I cannot remember in what book, 
 that the mulberry or aspen did not grow near the sea shore, 
 or in the Philistian territory ; but in the high table land, and 
 in the valleys in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Assuming 
 this to be the case, our explanation is simple and natural. 
 The sound of these leaves, when moved by a light breeze, 
 would be a phenomenon unknown to the Philistian soldiery. 
 The night wind blowing upon the groves of aspen trees, with 
 their tremulous leaves, would produce such a sudden and, to 
 them, unwonted sound as might be easily believed to be the 
 tread of a numerous and powerful enemy. At this moment 
 they were so timid and suspicious, that the sound of a shaken 
 leaf would chase them, and they would flee. Encamped, as 
 the Philistines were, in an enemy's country, and in the very 
 locality where they had formerly been defeated, and that 
 enemy, too, still under the command of David, a man so able 
 and courageous, so noted for skill and prowess for skill in 
 devising stratagems, and determination in carrying them out ; 
 a man who, ever since the day he slew Goliath, had been a 
 terror to the Philistines ; a man whose name the Philistian 
 mothers had ever since invoked as a terror with which to 
 
 frighten their children into quietness, when they could not 
 
 B
 
 66 THE GOING IN THE TOPS 
 
 otherwise still their crying ; just as, in ages long after, it is 
 said the Oriental mothers stilled their crying children by 
 threatening them with the name of Richard Cceur de Lion. 
 In these circumstances, when David, by the command of God, 
 who knew the end from the beginning, and knew at what 
 time the wind would blow, had led his men round to the rear 
 of the Philistian host, and was waiting the divinely appointed 
 signal when the Philistines had newly set the middle watch, 
 and all was again still and quiet, suddenly there springs up a 
 gentle breeze ; on a thousand aspen trees the leaves quiver, 
 watchmen are startled ; it is like the sound of a multitude ; 
 they give the alarm, the half-sleeping soldiers awake. What 
 is this sound on the tops of the trees ? They are startled and 
 panic-stricken. In another instant from behind the army, 
 from the quarter least of all expected, a tremendous shout arises. 
 David's seven-and-thirty mighties, at the utmost pitch of their 
 stentorian voices, cry out, " The sword of Jehovah and of 
 David ! " and the whole Israelitish host prolong the echo, 
 and rush down with irresistible impetuosity on the Philistines, 
 upon whom the terror of the Lord has now fallen, and they 
 are fleeing down the valleys towards the plain in breathless 
 haste and tumultuous confusion. David and his men pursue 
 them with resistless force and with irrepressible ardour, and 
 smite them down from Gibeon as far as Gazer. The victory 
 was complete, and so thoroughly was the Philistine power 
 broken, that it was many a long day before the five lords 
 durst again lift up their heads, or attempt an attack upon 
 Israel. 
 
 On Aneityum there are no aspen trees, but the gentle 
 breeze, in a quiet night, stirring the leaflets of the cocoa-nut 
 palm, produces a sound that would not be unlike the going
 
 OF THE MULBERRY TREES. 67 
 
 in the tops of the mulberry trees ; it is a sound exactly like 
 that of a heavy shower of rain. To a stranger the illusion 
 is so complete that the rustling is often mistaken for the 
 rain. When I went to Aneityum in 1852, I left Mrs. Inglis 
 at Anelgauhat with Mrs. Geddie, and Mr. Geddie and I went 
 round to Aname to my station, that we might erect two 
 rooms of a weather- boarded house, which I had brought 
 from New Zealand. We had to build a stone foundation 
 before we could erect the frame. Although it was in the 
 beginning of July, and hence the middle of winter there, 
 yet the weather was fine, and the days hot, and working 
 hard all day under a tropical sun, a kind of labour too, to 
 which I had not for a long time been accustomed, when 
 night came I felt very tired. We slept in the house of 
 Amosa, the Samoan teacher, which stood in the midst of a 
 grove of cocoa-nut trees. On the second or third night, 
 when we went to bed, the evening was clear and calm, not 
 a breath of wind was moving the trees. It had been blow- 
 ing a fresh trade wind during the day, but, as it often 
 happens, it had calmed down before sunset. During the 
 night I happened to awake ; and lo ! as appeared to me, it 
 was raining heavily ; how glad I felt ! Now, thought I, 
 the weather is broken ; there is heavy rain, I shall get a 
 good rest to-morrow, and I do need it. I turned myself, and 
 fell asleep with pleasing hopes. At daybreak, shortly after 
 six o'clock, I again awoke, and heard Amosa and his house- 
 hold singing their hymn at family worship. When they had 
 finished, I arose and looked out at the window, and there, 
 to my great disappointment, instead of a pouring wet morn- 
 ing and a day's rest, as I had expected, I was forcibly re- 
 minded of Thomson's well-known lines
 
 68 THE GOING IN THE TOPS 
 
 " But yonder comes the powerful king of day, 
 Kejoicing in the east ; " 
 
 the earth flooded with his light, and another hard, toilsome 
 day's work before me, under the rays of this tropical burning 
 sun. The supposed rain during the night was only the sound 
 of the cocoa-nut leaflets moved by a gentle breeze, resembling 
 the going in the tops of the mulberries. 
 
 Twelve years later, in 1864, and about the same season 
 of the year, the Rev. James D. Gordon, afterwards murdered 
 by a native of Eromanga, arrived at Aneityum from Nova 
 Scotia. He landed at Anelgauhat, and was occupying a bed- 
 room at the end of the printing-office, at a short distance 
 from the mission-house. One beautifully clear, calm night, 
 shortly after his arrival, he went to bed as usual, but some 
 time during the night he awoke, and heard, as seemed to 
 him, a heavy rain. " What a pity it is," he said to himself, 
 " that that valuable box of goods of mine was left outside, 
 and not put into the boat-house, where it would have been 
 kept dry; it will get thoroughly soaked with this rain. I 
 must get up at once and see what can be done." So up 
 he got in an instant, dressed himself as quickly as possible, 
 threw on his waterproof, buttoned it up to his chin, got 
 his umbrella, put his thumb on the spring, ready to put it 
 up the moment he got out; he then opened the door, and 
 was about to sally forth, when, lo ! to his utter surprise, 
 there was no rain, nothing was to be seen but a cloudless 
 sky, the stars shining, and " the moon walking in brightness," 
 the island and its inhabitants silent as the grave, and no 
 sound to be heard but the sea breaking on the reef. The 
 supposed rain was nothing but the rustling sound of the
 
 OF THE MULBERRY TREES. 69 
 
 cocoa-nut leaflets, the sound of the midnight breeze playing 
 with the feathery palm. The resemblance is so complete that 
 hundreds of times we have listened to the sound, and if there 
 was any object to be versed by knowing which was which, we 
 had to look out at the window, in order to satisfy ourselves 
 as to whether the sound was caused by the wind or the rain. 
 To me therefore it does not appear in the least necessary to 
 suppose that there was anything supernatural in the sound of 
 the going in the tops of the mulberry trees. In this instance 
 God made the winds His angels or messengers. The super- 
 natural was in God instructing David to make a compass to 
 come in behind the Philistian camp, and await the appointed 
 signal. This, in the exercise of implicit faith, he did, and 
 returned a triumphant conqueror.
 
 CHAFFER XL 
 
 MINISTERING ANGELS. 
 
 " He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy 
 ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot 
 against a stone." PSALM xci. n, 12. 
 
 " Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on 
 a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of 
 God, cast Thyself down ; for it is written, He shall give His angels 
 charge concerning Thee ; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, 
 lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone." MATTHEW iv. 5, 6. 
 
 "And he brought Him to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the 
 temple, and said unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down 
 from hence : for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over Thee, 
 to keep Thee : and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any 
 time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone." LUKE iv. 9-11. 
 
 SATAN can quote Scripture very glibly, but he is a very un- 
 sound, and a very unsafe expositor. He wants honesty, truth, 
 and moral principle. He quotes incorrectly, and he then mis- 
 applies. He quoted incorrectly, by omitting the words, "in 
 all thy ways," which limits the promise to a condition, and 
 then he makes it an unconditional promise. " In all thy 
 ways " clearly indicates that it was when employed in lawful 
 duty that this help and protection would be afforded ; but not 
 if He had presumptuously, without any call, cast Himself 
 down from the pinnacle of the temple. As Hengstenberg 
 says : "The language in both of the two verses does not apply 
 to dangers which one seeks, but only to such dangers as meet 
 the righteous man unsought, in his course through life."
 
 MINISTERING ANGELS. 7 I 
 
 Abraham's servant said : " I being in the way, the Lord led 
 me." King William, the Prince of Orange, according to Lord 
 Macaulay, recognised this principle very distinctly, when 
 Bishop Walker of Derry was shot as he was needlessly ex- 
 posing himself. When the King heard of his death, he was 
 very angry, and said : " He had no call to expose himself, and 
 hence no right to expect God's protection. It is totally 
 different with me, my duty calls me to expose myself; and 
 I have a right to trust to the divine protection : it was not so 
 with him." The Bishop accepted the New Theology as taught 
 by Satan, and lost his life : the King held fast by the Old 
 Theology of the Psalmist, honoured God, escaped danger, and 
 saved his country. 
 
 I have read an anecdote of one of the Fathers of the Secession 
 Church to the following effect : One Sabbath day he had 
 preached on the ministration of angels, from Hebrews i. 14. 
 After the service was over, his mind became seriously exercised 
 with doubts about the truth of the doctrine, as he had never 
 had any personal experience on the subject. While thus 
 ruminating, he was unexpectedly called to visit a sick person. 
 After he had spoken and prayed, he was leaving the house, 
 and was about to descend by an outside stair, on which there 
 was no railing ; he turned to the wrong side of the stair, and 
 instead of going down the steps, as he expected, he was sud- 
 denly precipitated on the other side. But before he reached 
 the ground, he felt like a hand catching him, and placing him 
 gently and safely on his feet. From that night till his dying 
 day he firmly believed that the hand that saved him was that 
 of an angel, and he had no longer any doubt about the doctrine 
 he had been preaching, that the angels are "all ministering 
 spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of
 
 72 MINISTERING ANGELS. 
 
 salvation." Much to the same effect may be found in an 
 interesting book on "The Ministration of Angels," by that 
 good old Puritan, Isaac Ambrose, author of a still better 
 known book, entitled " First, Middle, and Last Things." 
 
 But my object in citing this passage is to illustrate it by a 
 practice that prevails on Aneityum, which suggests a simple 
 explanation of the text ; and which, I think, it is probable, 
 also existed in Palestine. Most commentators think that the 
 expression, "they shall bear thee up in their hands," refers to 
 the conduct of mothers or nurses holding up children when 
 they are commencing to walk. I rather think it refers to 
 the walking of full grown men, needing help or protection, 
 cases such as our missionary experience can supply. In the 
 first years of our mission, Mr. Geddie and I usually made a 
 visit round the island once a year, taking with us a large 
 party of the most influential Christian natives. We visited 
 every settlement, and held a mission service at each, and the 
 Christian natives distributed themselves and talked to the 
 heathen. These visits occupied the most of a week each time. 
 Sometimes a wet day or a wet night intervened, and then the 
 roads became soft and slippery. In these cases two strong 
 men would come to the help of each of us. One on each side, 
 they would grasp our arms and half carry us up the steep and 
 slippery paths, and sometimes also as we went down on the 
 other side of a ridge ; their object was to hasten our progress 
 and ease our toil ; but especially to keep us from falling. 
 This was a common practice with them. But the most notable 
 instance of the kind occurred a short time before I left the 
 Islands. Mr. Annand had been appointed to what was formerly 
 Dr. Geddie's station. It had been vacant for a twelvemonth, 
 during which time I had taken charge of it. I stayed a month
 
 MINISTERING ANGELS. 73 
 
 with Mr. Annand, introducing him to the people and to the 
 work. "We visited every school on that side of the island, and 
 examined every scholar, and as every native was at school, it 
 involved the examination of every individual on that side of 
 the island. We were everywhere well received, and kindly 
 treated, but I shall notice only one special case as illustrative 
 of our text. We had fixed our headquarters at a place called 
 Umej, a settlement on the shore. One day we made rather a 
 long journey inland to a district called Anumej, to visit several 
 schools in that direction. Our path lay along the banks of 
 a beautiful stream, which we had frequently to cross. The 
 valley of Anumej is one of the largest and most beautiful on 
 Aneityum, and opens up into a most magnificent panorama, 
 which in the far distant pre -historic, or rather pre- Adamite 
 times, must have been the crater of some tremendous volcano, 
 some ten or twelve miles it may be from the one margin to the 
 other, but the whole interior from the bottom to the topmost 
 verge was covered with the densest forest, and the trees all 
 clothed with foliage of the freshest green. Igneous or 
 aqueous agencies, or both, had forced an opening to the 
 sea, which now constitutes the valley. As it was nearly 
 twenty years since I had visited that district with Mr. 
 Geddie, I had forgotten the distances, and when we had 
 finished our labours, I found that the day was farther on, and 
 the road to Umej a good deal longer, than I had calculated 
 upon. It had also come on a wet day. The road too was only 
 a narrow native footpath : hence on our return home we had 
 to hurry along lest we should be benighted. We had a party 
 of natives with us, who of their own accord had come to accom- 
 pany us, and to act as guides and assistants. The road became 
 bad, and travelling was often difficult. As Mr. Annand was
 
 74 MINISTERING ANGELS. 
 
 young and active, lie tripped along the path with a firm, elastic 
 step, and it was only on special occasions that he either needed 
 or would accept of any help. But it was always ready when 
 he wanted it. It was different with me. With the shadow 
 of threescore and ten hovering in the near distance, my limbs 
 were neither so strong nor so nimble as they had been thirty 
 or forty years before, and the natives instinctively recognised 
 this ; and four of our native teachers, all strong, vigorous 
 men, spontaneously attached themselves to me, and walked 
 close behind me, two on my right side and two on my left : 
 and whenever the road was slippery, or over stones, or among 
 stumps, or across the stream whenever there was the 
 slightest danger that I might fall, or slip, or stumble, that 
 moment two of those men, sometimes the whole four, two on 
 each side, seized me by the arms, kept me firmly up, and half 
 carried me till the danger was over. In this way we travelled 
 along for three or. four long hours, till we reached our destina- 
 tion, the last hour by the aid of torchlight. This is an exceed- 
 ingly comfortable mode of walking on such roads. You walk 
 with great safety and great ease; being held up firmly, you 
 have no fear of falling, and being half carried, you walk both 
 fast and with very little fatigue, and the limbs, being relieved 
 from the weight of the body, move on with the utmost facility. 
 Although such attentions on the part of the natives were not 
 new to me, for they had always assisted me in the same way 
 when needful, when I was travelling among them, yet as that 
 was one of the worst and most difficult journeys that I had 
 made for a long time, I realised more vividly than I had ever 
 done before, what seemed to me to be the meaning of the 
 promise made primarily to Christ, but through Him to His 
 people : " They (the angels) shall bear thee up in their hands,
 
 MINISTERING ANGELS. 75 
 
 lest thou dash thy foot against a stone ; " for many a time 
 that night would I have dashed my feet against both stones 
 and stumps of trees, but for the strong and willing hands that 
 bore me up on our journey. I have no doubt but that in 
 Palestine, from the nature of the country, and the character 
 of the roads, this was a common mode of travelling for aged 
 or important persons, when the paths were difficult or dan- 
 gerous. But to Christ were promised angels, not men, to be 
 His ministering servants, because He was divine; whereas 
 ministers and missionaries are best served by men, not angels, 
 at least visibly, because they themselves are human. But 
 what shall we say of that Gospel which changes heathens 
 into Christians, and transforms the wildest and most cruel of 
 cannibal savages into the mildest, and kindest, and gentlest 
 of ministering angels. 
 
 Thirty years before that time, when the natives of that 
 district were all heathen, a whale-boat was wrecked on the 
 coast, and one solitary white man escaped ashore with his 
 life. The natives gathered around him, and took him to the 
 house of the chief. It was there and then agreed to have 
 a cannibal feast over the poor man's body on the following 
 day. Wood was at once collected, and the fire was kindled 
 for the oven; and before twenty-four hours had elapsed, the 
 bones of the unhappy man would have been picked, broken, 
 and the marrow sucked out of them, had it not so happened 
 that a native was there, who had been at Sydney or some- 
 where else, and represented strongly to the chief the numbers 
 and power of the white people, and how most assuredly they 
 would revenge this man's death. In consequence of this the 
 chief reluctantly gave orders to save his life; and a party 
 of natives were told off who conveyed him to the harbour,
 
 76 MINISTERING ANGELS. 
 
 and delivered him safely to the master of the sandal wood 
 establishment. Now here were we, thirty years afterwards, 
 two defenceless white men, entirely in their hands, and yet 
 we were as safe, and as kindly and lovingly treated, as if 
 we had been the nearest and dearest of their own flesh and 
 blood. And what made the difference between then and now ? 
 Then they were heathen, now they are Christian. Has any 
 other book than the Bible such a transforming power ?
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE HAMMER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 " Is not My Word like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces." 
 
 JEKEMIAH xxiii. 29. 
 
 IN 1844 when I left this country to go out to our Foreign 
 Mission in New Zealand, I received a set of mason's tools from 
 my friend the late Mr, Thomas Binnie, builder, one of the 
 hundred men in Glasgow who were worth remembering. 
 Among those tools was a good whinstone hammer. During 
 the eight years I was in New Zealand, although I did require 
 to use some of the other tools, I did not require to use that 
 said hammer. But according to the ancient proverb, " Keep 
 a thing for seven years and you will find use for it : " and 
 certainly such was my experience. When I went to Aneityum 
 and had erected my house it was a wooden frame and the 
 walls were partly weather-boarded, and partly wattle and 
 plaster I found it was necessary to build two stone and 
 lime chimneys, one for our kitchen, and one for our dining- 
 room, which served also for our parlour, in wet or cold 
 weather. Very happily for me I accidentally discovered a 
 large quantity of stones, among which I found quite enough 
 very suitable for my purpose. The discovery was made in 
 this way : one day I was unexpectedly called upon to visit 
 a native woman, who was dangerously ill. She was the 
 chief's wife of Nohmunjap, a district about a mile and a half
 
 78 THE HAMMER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 distant. I went off at once to visit her, I administered some 
 medicine, and my patient soon recovered. On the shore 
 opposite to the settlement there was a great collection of 
 stones, whinstone and basaltic, partly in the sea and partly 
 on the beach, which had all been thrown out of the mountain 
 side by some volcanic eruption, in some long past era in the 
 pre-Adamite period of the island's history. When I began 
 to build my chimneys, I went off to examine those stones, for 
 the recovery of the chief's wife secured my liberty to take 
 whatever I wanted. I took with me a party of my most 
 intelligent natives, to assist me in selecting suitable stones, 
 in carrying them to the landing-place, and in rowing the boat 
 home. They were all deeply interested in my work. I found 
 the stones well suited for my purpose ; they were of the 
 proper size and shape and of the very quality that I wanted ; 
 they were of a very workable material, they were what Scotch 
 masons would have called good sltelping stones easily cut into 
 shape. When I had measured their length and breadth, 
 applied rule and square to them, and marked the lines accord- 
 ingly, and then struck them with my well-tempered, square- 
 faced hammer, along those lines, I could with ease not only 
 break the stones, a thing the natives had never seen done, but 
 cut them along those lines into the very shapes that I had 
 marked on them. When the natives saw this done, they 
 were amazed ; they opened their eyes and their mouths, they 
 held up their hands, and shouted aloud till they had exhausted 
 all the exclamations in the language. I never saw them so 
 surprised, except in the case of one man, after the chimneys 
 were erected. He came into our dining-room, and I caused 
 him to look up the chimney ; and when he saw daylight and 
 the sky at the top, he was fairly out of himself; he rushed
 
 THE HAMMER AND THE ROCK. 79 
 
 back to the middle of the floor, danced and leaped, crying out, 
 " Ah ! wauho / Kahispin ! Kaiheug vai cama ! ale Misi ! ok 
 Misi Inglis! He alia nitai inigki!" "Oh! wonderful! 
 prodigious ! Mercy on us ! Mister ! Mister Inglis ! What 
 thing is this ? " A little mechanical as well as medical know- 
 ledge often helps to increase the influence, and promote the 
 usefulness, of a missionary. As soon as I could speak 
 intelligibly to them, I made the hammer and the stones a 
 familiar text to them, and spoke to them somewhat in this 
 manner. " You are surprised with the hammer, but God 
 says, ' Is not My Word like a hammer, that breaketh the rock 
 in pieces 1 ' Now you see what a hammer can do with a stone, 
 it not only can break a stone but it can cut it into a particular 
 shape ; with the hammer I can cut the Stone straight, or 
 square, or round, as I wish ; but if I strike the stone with 
 a piece of wood, it has no effect whatever upon it. God says 
 our hearts are stony, they are hard as a stone. Now, as it 
 is only a hammer that can break a stone, and cut it into 
 shape, so it is only God's Word that, like the hammer, can 
 break our stony hearts, and form them into shape. Man's 
 word is like a piece of wood, it has no effect upon the heart of 
 men. Before the missionaries came to this island, many white 
 people came here, and some of them talked a great deal to you, 
 but you remained as you were your hearts were not changed . 
 And why ? because it was only the words of man that they 
 spoke to you, which was like striking the stone with a 
 piece of wood. But when the missionaries came, they brought 
 the hammer, the Word of God, with them, and they struck 
 the stone with this hammer; they applied the Word of God to 
 your hearts. They translated the Word of God into your 
 language, they read it to you ; they taught you to read it, you
 
 80 THE HAMMER AND THE ROCK. 
 
 read it yourselves ; you committed portions of it to memory, 
 you believed it, you obeyed it, it broke your stony heart, it 
 brought your heart into a new shape, you gave up your 
 heathenism, you accepted Christ as your Saviour, and took 
 God's law as the rule of your lives ; and hence wickedness and 
 misery are largely banished from the island, and goodness 
 and happiness are come in their place." This simile the 
 natives never forgot during all the five-and-twenty years that 
 I was on the island. Every now and again those who were 
 leading in prayer might have been heard using such ex- 
 pressions as the following, " O Lord,' Thy Word is like a 
 hammer, but our hearts are like a stone. Oh take Thy hammer 
 and with it break our stony hearts, take Thy good and holy 
 Word, and with it make our sinful hearts what Thou wishest 
 them to become, holy and just and good, that we may be 
 blessed and happy, and that Thy name may be praised and 
 glorified for ever and ever. Amen."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE FIG TEEE. 
 
 "What though the fig tree shall noiTUossom." HABAKKUK iii. 17. 
 "Although no flowers the fig tree clothe." PAKAPHRASE xxxii. r. 
 
 THE Hebrew word Parach, which is translated blossom in 
 the Authorised and Douay Versions in Habakkuk iii. 17, 
 signifies, according to Gesenius, " To sprout, to nourish, and 
 to bud as a plant ; and to put forth buds, leaves, and flowers 
 as a tree." The natural history of the fig tree was evidently 
 not known either to the translators of the Authorised or of 
 the Douay Versions ; still less was it known to Randell, the 
 author of that beautiful paraphrase, the 32nd, in the Church 
 of Scotland Version. The error is even continued in the 
 Revised Version. It is well known to those who have lived in 
 fig- growing countries, that the fig tree never blossoms, and is 
 never clothed with flowers. The fruit of the fig tree is simply 
 an undeveloped flower. My lamented friend, the late Hon. 
 Andrew Sinclair, M.D., Colonial Secretary of New Zealand, 
 was the first to point this out to me. And Canon Tristram 
 says, "The fruit of the fig, unlike any other fruit in this 
 country, is an enlarged, succulent, hollow receptacle contain- 
 ing the imperfect flowers in the interior. Hence the flowers 
 of the fig tree are not visible until the receptacle has been cut 
 open." The commentators have all followed our translators^
 
 82 THE FIG TREE. 
 
 and accepted their rendering as correct. So far as I know, 
 Dr. Adam Clarke is the only commentator, and Dr. Robert 
 Young is the only translator, who has corrected the mis- 
 translation. They both use the word flourish instead of 
 blossom. Their rendering is, " Although the fig tree shall not 
 flourish." As I have said, there is no such thing as a flower 
 or a blossom ever seen on the fig tree. It flourishes, it puts 
 forth leaves, and produces fruit, but it never flowers or 
 blossoms. The fruit comes first and then the leaves. Hence, 
 in his poem, on the Seasons, Thomson, " that great master of 
 description," as Hervey calls him, says : 
 
 " And rich beneath its leaf the luscious fig." 
 
 It was the leaves without the fruit that disappointed our 
 Saviour with the barren fig tree. Whether the leaves were 
 abnormal, as some suppose, or normal, as others infer, it did 
 not alter the condition of the tree ; the fruit should have been 
 there before the leaves. 
 
 The Bible is not a single book, it is a library, a literature, 
 an encyclopaedia ; it touches at more or fewer points the 
 whole circle of human knowledge. It is not merely a know- 
 ledge of Hebrew, Greek, and some other language, that a 
 translator of the Bible requires to possess; he would require 
 to know almost everything. The translators of our Authorised 
 Version, and also the translators of the Douay Version, 
 although the best scholars of the age in their respective 
 churches, were alike ignorant of botany, and were not aware 
 that the fig tree was an exception to all other fruit-bearing 
 trees, and that it never blossoms or puts forth flowers ; and, 
 hence, for more than two centuries and a half, a glaring 
 mistranslation has disfigured these otherwise matchless trans-
 
 THE FIG TREE. 83 
 
 lations. Happily for the credit of the translators very few of 
 their readers could detect the error. 
 
 On Aneityum there is no specimen of the common fig tree 
 indigenous ; but there is a very poor variety of the sycamore 
 fig. The peculiarity of the sycamore is this : the fruit all 
 adheres to the stock of the tree, and not, as in the common fig 
 tree, to the extremities of the branches. But on Tanna there 
 is an excellent species of the common fig; so good, that the 
 missionaries of the London Missionary Society took plants of 
 it in the John Williams on to Samoa. However, when I went 
 to Aneityurn I took from New Zealand two or three varie- 
 ties *of the common fig tree, which grew and bore fruit; and 
 although they were annually attacked by a worm, which de- 
 stroyed the old wood, and prevented the plants from reaching 
 the size they would otherwise have attained, they, nevertheless, 
 served to keep me always sorrowfully in mind that, however 
 beautiful the expression, " What though the fig tree shall 
 not blossom," and " though no floivcrs the fig tree clothe,' 1 they 
 were still mistranslations ; and also to secure that, whatever 
 other errors might find their way into the Aneityumese trans- 
 lation of the Bible, Habakkuk iii. 17 would, without doubt, 
 be correctly rendered.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE COCK CROWING TWICE. 
 
 " Jesus said unto Peter, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before 
 the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice." MATTHEW xxvi. 34. 
 
 " And Jesus saith unto Peter, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, 
 even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me 
 thrice." MARK xiv. 30. 
 
 " Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. 
 And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of 
 Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow thou shalt deny Me 
 thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly." MATTHEW xxvi. 74, 75. 
 
 " But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man 
 of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter 
 called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock 
 crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And when he thought thereon 
 he wept." MARK xiv. 71, 72. 
 
 CRITICS and commentators Have been a good deal puzzled how 
 to reconcile the apparently contradictory statements of Mark 
 and the other three Evangelists about the crowing of the cock. 
 This prediction of our Saviour did not refer to the crowing of 
 any particular cock, but to that time in the morning known as 
 cock-crowing, the beginning of the fourth watch. But Mark 
 says, " Before the cock crow twice," which makes two cock- 
 Growings. This has caused the difficulty to the critics. So 
 much has this been felt that, in one very old manuscript, the 
 word dis, twice, is found partially erased, as if the copyist 
 wished in this way to reconcile or assimilate Mark with the 
 other three Evangelists. But the rule now recognised by all 
 modern critics, that the reading most difficult to be accounted
 
 THE COCK CROWING TWICE. 85 
 
 for is most likely to be the true one, had not been present to 
 the mind of those redactors, nor yet another principle, equally 
 recognised in our times, that conjectural emendations are 
 almost invariably found to be wrong, when all the facts come 
 to be known. I shall be able to show that there is no dis- 
 crepancy between Mark and the other Evangelists. Natural 
 history does not seem to have been much studied, by some of 
 the commentators at least. One says, the first crowing of the 
 cock was about twelve o'clock. Another says that the first 
 crowing is irregular. A better knowledge of the habits of 
 the bird would have shown that both these statements were 
 wrong. Even Dr. Kitto, so famous as an Orientalist, is as 
 ignorant of the true facts as the ordinary commentators. Since 
 the doctrine of evolution and the transmutation of species has 
 not yet been established, we may safely assume that the cock- 
 crowing has been the same in all countries and in all ages ; 
 that it was the same in Jerusalem in the first century of the 
 Christian era as it is on Aneityum in the nineteenth. In 
 ancient times, when clocks and watches were unknown, the 
 cock-crowing was a distinctly marked time of the morning ; 
 but since clocks and watches came into common use, and since 
 poultry, as in towns, were not generally kept, the cock-crowing, 
 as a marking of time, ceased to be attended to, and the habits 
 of the bird were no longer noticed : hence the loose writing of 
 the commentators. But in the South Seas, where clocks and 
 watches were unknown, as in Palestine of old, the cock-crowing 
 was the best marked hour of the night. Like the Jews, too, 
 they had two cock-crowings : the first of these between two 
 and three, the other fully an hour later, between three and 
 four : the first called the false cock-crowing, the second called 
 the true cock-crowing. When we first went to Aneityum, we
 
 8o THE COCK CROWING TWICE. 
 
 soon discovered that time was regularly marked by the cock- 
 crowing ; but it was some time before we discovered that there 
 were two cock-crowings. It came about in this way. When 
 Mr. Geddie, who had charge of the printing-press, was 
 printing our native books, to secure the greatest possible 
 accuracy he always sent the proof-sheets over to me, that I 
 might read them over, and make any corrections. For the 
 sake of being company to one another, two lads generally came 
 with them, stayed all night to allow me time to look over 
 the sheets, and then returned in the morning : the distance 
 was twelve or fourteen miles. They started earlier or later 
 according to the urgency of the case. One evening I said 
 to them, " Mr. Geddie says he is in a great hurry for this 
 sheet, and wishes you back as soon as possible. I want you, 
 therefore, to rise very early and leave this place by the cock- 
 crowing." " But which cock-crowing do you mean ? " they said. 
 " Which 1 " I said, " how many are there ? " " Oh, you know," 
 they said, "there are two cock-crowings; the true one and the 
 false one." "And what is the difference?" I said. "Oh," 
 said they, " the false cock-crowing is the first one, and then 
 after a while is the true one." This we afterwards found 
 ample means of verifying. Cocks, if they are disturbed or 
 awakened, will crow at any hour of the night. But if left 
 unmolested, these two cock-crowings are as regular in their 
 occurrence as the rising and setting of the sun. We had the 
 best means of knowing this fact every morning that we wished 
 to observe its recurrence. We had always a good supply of 
 poultry in our own yard ; and every family on the island kept 
 poultry. There are no villages on Aneityum, and there are no 
 farm-houses standing a mile or two apart, as in this country, 
 but the whole island is occupied with a system of cottage
 
 THE COCK CROWING TWICE. 87 
 
 gardening. The system is this : there is one cottage or hut, or 
 perhaps two, each occupied by a family, and surrounded by 
 a neat reed fence of wicker-work, to protect the garden from 
 the pigs ; there are on the island from fifty to sixty lands or 
 districts, each containing, when we went first thither, from 
 half-a-dozen to a score of such cottages and gardens. Our 
 mission station lay between two such lands, and within about 
 a quarter of a mile of us there might be about twenty families. 
 Every family had poultry, which all roosted on the trees 
 standing round about the houses. Hence thirty, forty, or fifty 
 cocks were within hearing. Every morning, therefore, we 
 could hear both crowings. Somewhere about two o'clock one 
 cock would crow, and a few others would follow, all feeble and 
 drowsy-like, as if half asleep ; then all would subside into 
 stillness. This is the false coclc-croioing : there is no truth, no 
 heart, no reality in it ; it is only, as it were, a pretence. But 
 about an hour or rather more afterwards (Luke says, "About 
 the space of one hour," &c.), somewhere about three o'clock, or 
 a little later, when one cock crows, immediately there is a full 
 ringing chorus, a perfect storm of crowing, every one more 
 fully alive than another. This is the true code-crowing, the 
 alektorophonia of the Gospels, which marks the time with an 
 unmistakable distinctness, and is enough to awaken the soundest 
 sleeper, or arrest the attention of the most indifferent listener. 
 It was this, the true cock-crowing, that awoke Burns out of 
 his reverie, when he was composing his poem, " A Winter 
 Night," when he wrote : 
 
 " I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer 
 Shook off the powthery snaw, 
 And hailed the morning wi' a cheer, 
 A cottage-rousing craw."
 
 88 THE COCK CROWING TWICE. 
 
 It was the clear, shrill, true crowing of the cock that startled 
 the poet, and recalled him from his moody musing. It was 
 the same true cock-crowing that awoke Mrs. Thomas Carlyle, 
 when she was staying with the Bullers at Troston Rectory, 
 near St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, as recorded in one of her 
 letters, dated Aug. n, 1842. "Then about four," she says, 
 "commenced never so many cocks challenging each other all 
 over the parish." 
 
 Peter must have heard the low, half suppressed, feeble, false 
 crowing, but it had made no impression on his mind. But 
 when the true crowing rang forth loud and clear, he was 
 instantaneously aroused to a consciousness of his cowardice 
 and his guilt : and when the Saviour looked on him, he re- 
 membered the warning prophecy, his conscience smote him, 
 he repented, and wept bitterly. 
 
 But the point to which I wish to direct special attention 
 is this, that, to natives of Aneityum, the statement in Mark 
 about two cock- Growings, while the other three Evangelists 
 speak only of one, would cause no difficulty whatever, because 
 to them both expressions convey exactly the same meaning. 
 When they speak of the cock-crowing, they mean the true 
 cock-crowing ; and when they speak of the two cock-crowings the 
 expression points to the very same time as the other. Hence, 
 before the cock crew and before the cock crew twice, to them 
 mean exactly the same thing ; the same as, before the morning 
 watch, or Ixjfore three o'clock, thou shalt deny Me thrice. 
 Whether therefore our Saviour warned Peter twice, as some 
 commentators think, and that Mark gives the words used by 
 Christ on the one occasion, and the other three Evangelists 
 give the words used by Him on the other occasion, or whether 
 He warned him only once, and that Mark gives the full form
 
 THE COCK CEO WING TWICE. 89 
 
 of the words He used, while the other three writers give the 
 shorter abridged form, the meaning to the Jews and to all the 
 ancients, as it is to the natives of Aneityum, would be pre- 
 cisely the same. The doctrine of verbal inspiration does not 
 mean, that two or more of the sacred writers, narrating the 
 same event, or recording the same speech, must all use pre- 
 cisely the same words, but that they must all convey sub- 
 stantially the same meaning when the statements are properly 
 understood, although the meaning may be more or less fully 
 stated, according as it may be required by the object which 
 the writer has in view. It was not till I was on Aneityum 
 and heard the two cock-crowings so distinctly, that I clearly 
 understood how Mark's words, so different from those of the 
 other three Evangelists, were in meaning the very same as 
 theirs. At the same time this difference of statement showed 
 that he was no copyist. His was independent testimony, and 
 on that account doubly valuable; as "In the mouth of two 
 or three witnesses shall every word be established."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FASTING AND TAKING NOTHING. 
 
 "And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take 
 meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and 
 continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to 
 take some meat ; for this is for your health : for there shall not an 
 hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, 
 he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all ; and 
 when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good 
 cheer, and they also took some meat." ACTS xxvii. 33-36. 
 
 THIS is a strictly Oriental form of speech. " This day is the 
 foxirteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting" 
 But lest the word fasting should be ambiguous, something 
 like Daniel's mourning for three full weeks, during which 
 time he ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine 
 into his mouth, it is added, " having taken nothing" Words, 
 as we understand them, could not more unequivocally convey 
 the impression, that during those fourteen days they had 
 literally tasted no food whatever. We have no hesitation 
 in admitting that Moses, on three occasions, literally fasted 
 forty days and forty nights ; that Elijah and our Saviour did 
 each of them the same. But then we recognise that they 
 were miraculously sustained. In this case, however, Luke 
 gives no intimation that Paul and his 275 companions in 
 suffering experienced any miraculous support. It was an 
 ordinary voyage, and they trusted to nothing but ordinary
 
 FASTING AND TAKING NOTHING. 91 
 
 means for both their safety and their sustenance. But in 
 this form of speech we have a clear proof that this book 
 was written in the East. It is an exact Oriental idiom. No 
 man brought up in Western Europe, at least no English 
 speaking missionary, could, in Paul's circumstances, have 
 used such a loose, vague mode of expression; but it was 
 doubtless quite well understood by his audience. Although 
 this mode of speaking is stumbling to us, it is not in the least 
 so to the natives of Aneityum, as they themselves speak pre- 
 cisely in the same way. We instinctively know that the 
 words cannot be understood literally; but the natives of 
 Aneityum, without any explanation, know as near as may 
 be what the Apostle meant. Their mode of speaking, like 
 his, is Oriental. For example, you ask a native if he has 
 eaten anything to-day. He says, No, he has eaten nothing. 
 You ask him if he ate anything yesterday. He says, No, he 
 ate nothing. You ask him again if he ate anything the day 
 before. He gives you the same answer; and you might go 
 on putting the same questions and receiving the same answers 
 for any length of time; and were he on board a ship, like 
 that in which Paul was sailing, he would say without hesita- 
 tion that he had eaten nothing for a fortnight. But if you 
 catechise him a little more closely, you will find what he 
 means by these general assertions. If you say, You have 
 told us that you ate nothing to-day : but did you not drink 
 a cocoa-nut or two, and eat the food contained in the inside 
 of it ? He will say, Oh yes. You go on and say, But did you 
 not also eat some bananas yesterday? He will again say, 
 Oh yes. And the day before yesterday, did you not chew some 
 sugar cane? He again answers, Oh yes, I chewed a little. 
 And the day before that, did you not roast a bread-fruit and
 
 92 FASTING AND TAKING NOTHING. 
 
 eat it ? and the day before that, did you not roast some horse 
 chestnuts and eat them 1 He says, Oh yes, I had a few. And 
 the day before that, did you not roast a few small yams and 
 eat them 1 He says again, Oh yes, I had some. In this way 
 you might go on for the whole fortnight, and he would readily 
 admit that he had been eating something every day. But 
 what a native means, when he tells you he has eaten nothing, 
 is simply this, that no oven has been cooked that day ; and 
 that the family or the party have sat down to no regular 
 meal. Now this was precisely the case on board of this ship. 
 During the fourteen days in which the vessel was hove to, 
 and drifting under the pressure of this Euroclydon or 
 Levanter, the waves would be constantly breaking over the 
 bulwarks, and washing along the decks ; the hatches would all 
 be battened down, and the fires in the ship's galley would 
 remain extinguished. There would be no cooking on board, 
 no rations would be served out, and no meals served up. 
 Both seamen and passengers would take food when and how 
 they could get it ; stale bread, or mouldy biscuit, or handfuls 
 of wheat, or anything else they could lay their hands on, but 
 never once a regular meal ; hence Paul said truly, as they 
 understood him, "Ye have continued fasting, having taken 
 nothing." But now that the vessel had been brought to 
 anchor, the sea calm, and the ship steady, the hatches were 
 again opened, and all on board came on deck ; and although 
 they probably did not wait till the cooks kindled the galley 
 fires, filled the ship's coppers, and cooked provisions for a full 
 meal, yet, evidently at Paul's suggestion, and by the captain's 
 orders, the stewards served out full rations for the whole 
 company, and Paul, now recognised as the accredited chaplain 
 of the ship, delivered to the whole company this hope-inspiring
 
 FASTING AND TAKING NOTHING. 93 
 
 address, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all. He 
 then broke the bread, Matthew Harvey says in a parenthesis, 
 " It was sea-biscuit," and began to eat. What a change the 
 speech, and prayer, and conduct of Paul made on the whole 
 company ! For the last fortnight they had been at their 
 wit's end through hunger and despair. Now they were all 
 of good cheer. During that time, as Paul expressed it, they 
 had fasted, having taken nothing. Now they all had a 
 regular full meal; for when it was over, "they had eaten 
 enough," and rose with alacrity to their work. 
 
 On Aneityum the natives never had more than one regular 
 meal in the day, generally in the evening, and which might 
 in Scripture phraseology be called either a dinner or a supper. 
 All their other eating, however plentiful, was at odd times ; 
 they did this because they cooked, or made a regular oven, 
 only once a day, and not always that. But since they be- 
 came Christian, although they should not have even one oven 
 during the whole week, they have always one on the Saturday, 
 in which a sufficiency of food is provided for the Sabbath. 
 The Saturday evening oven is an institution over the whole 
 island, hence there is no fasting on Sabbath. There has 
 grown up, what was formerly unknown, even a regular 
 breakfast on Sabbath morning ; and having, like Paul's com- 
 panions, "eaten enough," they are "of good cheer" when 
 they enter the church, and throughout the day ; the psalmist's 
 picture of family life is realised through the whole com- 
 munity 
 
 " In dwellings of the righteous 
 
 Is heard the melody 
 
 Of joy and health."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 "Be courteous." i PETER iii. 8. 
 "Julius courteously entreated Paul." ACTS xxvii. 3. 
 "Publius received us, and lodged us three days courteously." 
 
 ACTS xxvii. 7. 
 
 THE mode of approaching and of holding intercourse with 
 natives is a matter of great importance to a missionary for 
 securing success among them. Many people think that because 
 they are low, degraded savages, you may speak to them as you 
 like, and treat them as you may think proper, it will make no 
 difference. I have heard white men, who ought to have known 
 better, shout out to a native, " Come along, you lazy black 
 fellow," or "Go away, you stupid nigger," or "Now, kanaka, if 
 you don't be smart, I'll let you feel the weight of a rope's end." 
 But this is a great mistake, they are men, and have all the 
 attributes of humanity, and all the feelings of human beings ; 
 they are specially sensitive to any improper treatment, they 
 discriminate very quickly and acutely between rudeness and 
 politeness, between good and bad usage. Many would scarcely 
 believe it; but true it is and of verity, that there is perhaps 
 no place where politeness is of more importance than among 
 savages. I have seen it hundreds of times. When natives 
 know you thoroughly, there is nothing that is reasonable that 
 they will not do for you, if you approach them in the right 
 spirit. They are as human as any of ourselves ; they are
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 95 
 
 actuated by the same motives, animated by the same spirit, 
 and moved by the same influences. I always made a point of 
 reproving them as seldom as possible. If a native, whom I 
 had engaged to do some work for me, disappointed me, with- 
 out taking any notice of what had happened, I charitably 
 assumed that there had been some oversight or some mis- 
 management on my part or some misunderstanding on his 
 part, and on the next occasion I tried to be doubly careful that 
 all my arrangements should be as complete as I could possibly 
 make them, and the results were generally satisfactory, or if 
 not so, I had no ground of real complaint against the natives. 
 There was some good reason if they failed. I remember on one 
 occasion that Mrs. Inglis and I were going round in our boat 
 to the other side of the island. I bespoke a boat's crew the 
 night before. We were to go off at ten o'clock in the forenoon, 
 that being the hour that suited best for the tide. The boat was 
 launched, the sail, the oars, and the luggage were all put into 
 the boat, Mrs. Inglis had taken her seat, and everything was 
 ready for us to proceed on our voyage, when we discovered 
 that one of our crew was awanting, without whom we could 
 not proceed, as I had no odd boatman that morning. I liked 
 always to have a good strong boat's crew, hence I often en- 
 engaged an extra man, and not unfrequently, especially when 
 they had any object of their own to serve, we had one or 
 more volunteers, and as it was always well to have the boat 
 well manned, I never discouraged a little volunteering. This 
 morning, however, we had no spare hands. The missing boat- 
 man was again and again called aloud by his name, but there 
 was no response. Messengers were then sent out to inquire 
 after him, but with no better results. At this juncture we saw 
 the lad coming along slowly towards the boat, but instead of
 
 g6 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 hastening along, and jumping into the boat, as I expected him 
 to do, he deliberately passed us, and went into the bush. This 
 looked so much like a desire to add insult to injury that I 
 was quite nonplussed. It was now clear that another boat- 
 man must be sought for. We had already lost half an hour ; 
 the case was urgent, and also beset with difficulty. There was 
 only a limited number of natives who could handle an oar. 
 In Samoa none of the natives could pull : all the missionaries 
 got their boats propelled by paddles. This required double 
 the number of boatmen. It was the same on Aneityum at 
 the beginning of the mission ; not one of them could pull an 
 oar, or manage a boat, till Mr. Geddie and I had taught them. 
 Afterwards when the whaling commenced, and they had 
 acquired practice in boating, they became expert oarsmen. 
 But at that hour of the day all the natives, boatmen and non- 
 boatmen, were away at their plantations, a good distance off. 
 However, messengers were sent off, and at the end of another 
 half hour the services of two boatmen were secured, and we 
 set off on our voyage. When we had got fairly under way 
 my wife, whose patience by this time was all but exhausted, 
 said to me in a tone of unmistakable earnestness, " I do hope 
 when we get home that you will take that lad and give him 
 a thorough talking to. I have sat for an hour in the boat, in 
 this burning sun, I have four or five hours to sit in the same 
 condition, before we get to the end of our voyage, and you 
 know, that I lost four hours' sleep last night with fever and 
 ague. Now see that you don't miss him. We shall soon not 
 be able to trust to one of them." A few mornings afterwards 
 I had again to go round to the other station, but I took care 
 to have all my arrangements made perfectly secure the night 
 before, but on going down to the beach I was agreeably surprised
 
 MODE OP TREATING NATIVES. 97 
 
 to find that my defaulting friend of the former day had been 
 the first to enter the boat and the first to lay hold of an oar. 
 On inquiring at him about his former conduct I found that he 
 had taken ill of a complaint of which he felt a delicacy in 
 speaking about in public, and hence he acted as he did. " But," 
 I said, " why did not you tell me, and then I should have 
 known, and it would have been all right ? " " Oh," said he, 
 " I was ashamed, and could not speak about it." Further 
 reproof was unnecessary. I have repeatedly found that, when 
 the conduct of a native seemed to be very ambiguous, and 
 looked from our standpoint to be very bad, the most charitable 
 view of the case was generally found to be the right one. 
 The conduct was better than it seemed to be. 
 
 By taking a native privately, and speaking to him quietly, 
 you can do almost anything with him ; but speak to him 
 publicly about his conduct, or reprove him openly before the 
 other natives, and you at once throw him into antagonism 
 and make him your decided enemy. He feels, like Jonah, 
 that he does well to be angry. On one occasion a young 
 man living on the premises had been behaving very badly, 
 neglecting his work, and showing a great amount of wilful 
 disobedience. I saw that this could not be allowed to go on, 
 so I took him quietly one evening into my study by himself, 
 and had a long friendly talk with him. I said, "What is 
 this that you have been doing ? What kind of conduct is this 
 that you have been carrying on of late 1 This is not like your 
 former conduct. This is not at all like the conduct of your 
 father and mother. You know how well your father always 
 behaved towards me ; he was always kind, and obliging, and 
 helpful ; and your mother was always the same to Mrs. Inglis. 
 You, too, used always to be a good boy," (here I enumerated
 
 98 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 fill the good things he had ever done that I could remem- 
 ber). "You came regularly to school, and were diligent in 
 learning to read. I remember, too, when your mother was 
 dying, how attentive you were to her; how, day after day, 
 you waited on her, how you sought all kinds of food for her 
 that you thought she would like, how you went to the sea 
 every day and fished for her, how you went daily to the spring 
 and filled her bottle with fresh water and laid it at her head, 
 how you gathered sticks and kept a nice fire burning beside 
 her every night, how you made worship with her night and 
 morning, sang the 'Happy Land' and the 'Rock of Ages,' 
 and often read the Bible to her during the day. Everybody 
 remarked what a good boy you were, and how kind you were 
 to your mother. Now, as boys who are good to their parents 
 almost always turn out well, the Lord blesses them and keeps 
 them, how is it that you are now behaving in this way ? " By 
 this time he had completely broken down, and was crying. 
 "Oh," said he, " So-and-so said so-and-so to me, and broke my 
 heart. I was very weak, my heart was dark, Satan tempted 
 me, and I forgot myself, and did as you saw." I said to him, 
 " Oh, I see you understand ; I shall not speak about this again. 
 You go away. You pray to the Lord to keep you, and see that 
 you watch carefully over your heart ; and to-morrow I want 
 you to do so-and-so," naming some work for him to do. He 
 went away, and I had no further trouble with him. In 
 dealing with natives, it is of the utmost importance to lead 
 them to cherish feelings of self-respect, to make them feel that 
 they have a character to maintain. While you can lay down 
 no hard and fast lines by which to act towards them, it is 
 always safe to praise them for what is good in their conduct, 
 rather than blame them for what is bad. Among a people
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 99 
 
 like the South Sea Islanders, especially the Papuans, who are 
 so little amenable to authority of any kind, where every man 
 is accustomed to do very much what is right in his own eyes, 
 it is extremely difficult to establish anything like rule or dis- 
 cipline. The missionary must trust to his personal influence, 
 to the attachment which the natives form for himself. John 
 Williams, John Hunt, and all the most outstanding mission- 
 aries in the South Seas, exercised a magnetic personal influence 
 over the natives ; the natives became so attached to the mis- 
 sionaries that they would have risked their lives for them, 
 as David's three mighties broke through the host of the 
 Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, not 
 to save his life, but simply to quench his thirst. Human 
 nature is the same everywhere. During the American War 
 of Independence, an old lady, who had a store in Philadelphia, 
 used to say that the most profitable thing she kept in her shop 
 was politeness, it drew the very children to her even better 
 than sweeties. What was it that gave Miss Nightingale such 
 powerful control over the soldiers and seamen in the hospitals 
 during the Crimean war, so that they would have done any- 
 thing for her in their power ; and in her presence they would 
 not have uttered a single coarse, vulgar, profane, or improper 
 word 1 It was, no doubt, largely owing to her refined, cultured, 
 polite manner, dominated by a truly Christian spirit. It 
 is by approaching heathen natives in this manner that mis- 
 sionaries may expect to be successful among them. 
 
 For politeness the Samoans are said to be the French of 
 the Pacific. They are at least very formal and ceremonious 
 in their intercourse one with another. Our brethren, the 
 missionaries there, met them on their own ground, and added 
 a Christ like spirit to their court-like forms of social inter-
 
 100 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 course. The word alofa, to love or pity, is, in one form or 
 another, used in all modes of salutation; and, like oil to 
 machinery, softens and smoothes all their social intercourse. 
 Mr. Geddie stayed some time in Samoa, on his way to the 
 New Hebrides, and brought on to Aneityum some of their 
 forms of politeness. Aiheug, to love or pity, has the same 
 meaning as alofa ; and he introduced the salutation, Kaiheug 
 vai eug, " My love to thee." The Aneityumese had no form of 
 salutation in their heathen state ; they passed each other in 
 heathenism without any recognition ; but in imitation of the 
 missionaries, the Christian natives saluted each other ; and as 
 Christianity spread, so did the salutation, " My love to you," 
 or, "I wish you well," till the minor virtue of politeness, as 
 far at least as salutations went, had permeated the whole 
 community. Many people think that you may speak as you 
 like to savages. This is quite a mistake. As I have said, 
 you cannot speak too politely to natives. The sovereign of 
 the realm, and the captain of a ship always command the 
 Queen her subjects, the captain his crew. But in spite of the 
 adage, " The Court is the standard of good breeding," we did 
 not find that commanding was the most successful way of 
 getting on well with savages ; but, following the example of 
 our Samoan brethren, and, I suppose, of most of the successful 
 missionaries, we found that the surest and most pleasant way 
 of getting along with natives was, not by commanding or 
 ordering, but by politely requesting them. Even when we 
 were paying a native for working, we invariably said to him, 
 Aiheug vai nyalc, " Have compassion on me," and do so-and-so ; 
 but which in reality amounts very much to the phrase, " Please 
 do so-and-so," or " Please give me so-and-so," among ourselves. 
 But doubtless among natives, whether savage or Christian,*
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. IOI 
 
 politeness, genuine Christian politeness, is one of the most 
 certain guarantees for success. We had on the islands a 
 trader's wife, who was not recognised as a model for all the 
 virtues, but who was certainly a model for suavity and 
 blandness of manner towards the natives. She had, when 
 a girl, been boarded and educated in the family of a retired 
 missionary. She was naturally kind, and possessed great 
 tact ; and had she been imbued with higher religious principles, 
 and been placed in more favourable circumstances, she would 
 have been a power for good among the islands. When she 
 wished any special favour, or any important service, from a 
 native, she would clap him gently on the shoulder, and say, 
 Ak inlial unyak, ak irihal unyak, aiheug vai nyak, " O my child, 
 my child, have compassion on me," and do so-and-so for me, 
 or give me so-and-so; and the request was never refused. 
 When she died, one of our natives said to my wife about her : 
 " She was a kind woman to us when we were working for her ; 
 she did not think much about our souls, but she was always 
 good in thinking about our bodies." 
 
 It is matter of great importance to consider in what manner 
 the Gospel is to be presented to the heathen, so as to make it 
 attractive and not repulsive. As a general rule the heathen 
 are averse to the receiving of the Gospel. If they have had 
 little or no intercourse with white men they are anxious to have 
 a missionary to live among them, for the sake of the temporal 
 benefits they expect to receive by him or from him, for the 
 fish-hooks, the knives, the hatchets, or any other articles of 
 European manufacture for which they may have taken a 
 fancy; but if they can get these from a trader they would 
 prefer him. It is not for any religious instruction they desire 
 to receive. As a general rule the natives, in their heathen
 
 IO2 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 state, are afraid of the new religion and of the missionaries. 
 Their own religion is a burdensome and expensive system. 
 Their own priests lay on them heavy burdens, and grievous to 
 be borne, and keep them in constant terror, by professing to 
 possess supernatural power to bring upon them sickness and 
 death, and all other calamities ; and they think that mission- 
 aries are only a class of priests stronger and more powerful 
 than their own, and if they receive the new religion, they 
 will be only adding a load to a burden; if the old religion 
 scourged them with whips the new religion would scourge 
 them with scorpions. Hence they keep as shy as possible 
 both of the missionary and of the new religion. Some young 
 missionaries too, with the very best intentions, present the 
 gospel, not simply as good news, but rather as a system of 
 restrictions. Shocked by the cruelties and abominations of 
 heathenism, they begin and forbid and denounce these, before 
 they can make them understand anything about the blessings 
 of the Gospel. It has been said that a young missionary does 
 very well, if, at the end of the first year, he has done no ill. 
 Let him live very quietly, interfere with nobody, but observe 
 carefully, learn the language as fast as he can, acquire as much 
 knowledge about the people as possible, write down their 
 names, find out the relations of one tribe to another, and do 
 good as he finds opportunity ; but never force his services. 
 Let him bide his time, and his time will come, perhaps sooner 
 than he may think it will ; but he will then be able to utilise 
 opportunities when they occur. We tried to act upon these 
 principles, to hurry nothing. We trusted for success to " the 
 expulsive power of a new affection." We forbade nothing. 
 We never said, " You must cease smoking, you must not drink 
 kava, you must give over your night- dances and your great
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES, 103 
 
 feasts, you must put away all your wives bat one, you must 
 not beat your wife, you must not fight with the neighbouring 
 tribes, you must not bewitch any one, you must not avenge 
 yourselves upon your enemies, you must not paint your faces 
 with black or red or yellow pigments, you must not indulge 
 in any heathen practices. Some may think that this was 
 very doubtful teaching, a very loose kind of preaching. But 
 no; our Saviour began His sermon on the mount, not by 
 inculcating the tithing of mint and cummin, not by pro- 
 nouncing woes on the Pharisees, but by the Beatitudes. 
 " Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the 
 merciful, happy are ye," &c. We endeavoured both by our 
 preaching and our practice, to represent Christianity as some- 
 thing great, and something good ; as something very attractive, 
 but never in the least repulsive. As I have said we offered 
 them the Sabbath as a day of rest, a day also with abundance 
 of food, a day not of amusement and frivolity, but a day of joy 
 and gladness in the worship of God. We took nothing away, 
 we deprived them of no enjoyment. But whdn they came to 
 know and understand and embrace what was good, the evil 
 was given up without a grudge. They embraced the Sabbath 
 and soon rejoiced in its privileges. When they came to under- 
 stand that Christ was the only Saviour of sinners, and pro- 
 fessed their faith in Him as such, they gave up all their 
 heathen worship and never went back to it. When they came 
 to understand that the marriage of one man with one woman 
 was the best and happiest kind of marriage, bigamy and poly- 
 gamy disappeared without an effort. By our teaching and by 
 our example we tried to show what a good thing Christianity 
 is. "Accept of the Gospel," we said, "and see how happy 
 you will be." They were sufficiently miserable in heathenism,
 
 IO4 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 and our object was to show them that godliness is profitable 
 unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of 
 that which is to come. I have often been struck in reading 
 Dr. Chalmers's sermons, with the way in which he approaches 
 the unconverted, in order to convince them of sin. He never 
 assails them on the worst side of their character. He 
 approaches them on the best. He never begins by telling 
 them of all the evil that is in their lives and in their conduct, 
 but by enumerating all their good qualities. He never takes 
 up the attitude of a pessimist, and sets forth all the evils of 
 the time, and all the wickedness of the people, and charges 
 these home upon his hearers or his readers, and says to each 
 of them, " Thou art the man, therefore repent in sackcloth 
 and ashes." No, he took a different path in approaching 
 them. He took them as it were into his confidence, made 
 them his friends, and made them feel that he was their 
 friend. He said in effect to them, " There is very much 
 in you that is commendable; you are industrious, you are 
 temperate, your character is blameless and irreproachable; 
 you are honest, you are honourable in all your business trans- 
 actions ; you are just, you are generous, you are kind, you 
 are genial ; you are good husbands, you are excellent fathers, 
 you are quiet and obliging neighbours ; touching the righte- 
 ousness that is by the law you are blameless. But, never- 
 theless, although man has nothing against you, yet you know 
 what your own heart in the sight of God testifies against you. 
 You are conscious that the love of God is not in you, that 
 love to God is not the highest and overruling motive in all 
 your actions that the heart is deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately, incurably wicked. The old heart cannot be made 
 better, it must be made anew, renewed." The charge was
 
 MODE OP TREATING KATIVES. 105 
 
 thus made against the race, not against the individual, against 
 what the man's heart said, not against what the world knew, 
 and hence there was no quarrel with the preacher. It was 
 on such lines as these that we endeavoured to approach the 
 natives. We knew that God communicates to men the 
 benefits of redemption chiefly by the ordinary means of grace, 
 the Word, sacraments, and prayer. We strove to bring them 
 under the influence of those means. We translated the 
 Scriptures for them, read them to them, explained them to 
 them, and taught them to read them. We urged the natives 
 to come to the house of God, and take part, as they were 
 able, in all the ordinances of divine grace; and as there is 
 a special fitness in the means of grace for effecting a change 
 of heart, we did our best to bring the natives, and to keep 
 them constantly under these influences. And knowing that 
 human power was totally unable to change their hearts and 
 save their souls, we did all in our power to place them in 
 such relations to the means of grace the Word, sacraments, 
 and prayer that those means would most effectually operate 
 to secure their salvation. We endeavoured to place their 
 souls in such a relation to these heaven- appointed means and 
 to the Spirit of God, that we could rest with confidence on 
 the divine promise rendering these means effectual. And we 
 were not disappointed. In twelve years after the arrival of 
 Messrs. Powell and Geddie and their wives, and eight years 
 after our arrival, the whole population of 3500 had abandoned 
 heathenism, professed Christianity, and placed themselves 
 under Christian instruction. We made all our converts 
 missionaries. For a long time, every Sabbath afternoon we 
 sent out two or three parties to visit heathen districts, hold 
 little services of praise and prayer with the natives, and to
 
 106 MODE OP TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 talk with them about Christianity. If we knew that the 
 people of the district to which they were going were not 
 friendly to the Christian party, we sent with them a strong 
 body of men, headed by some persons of importance, not to 
 compel them to become Christian, but to remove from them 
 all temptation to attack the evangelistic party, which they 
 might have had, if the evangelists had been weak. On one 
 occasion this was attempted, and a Christian chief was 
 severely wounded ; but we took such precautions afterwards, 
 that the attempt was never again repeated. As the work 
 went on we had to change our modes of operation, but never 
 to abandon the spirit of politeness ; it being one form of that 
 charity which never faileth. 
 
 It has been said, that he who spits against the wind spits 
 in his own face; and that if men will speak soft words they 
 will hear sweet echoes. These axioms we found specially true 
 in our dealings with the natives. We found it always, as I 
 have said, better to praise them for what they did well, than 
 to blame them for what they did ill. They were intensely 
 human. It has been said, that no man can be a successful 
 teacher who has not studied moral philosophy, that he may 
 understand human nature, and know how to manage human 
 beings, that he may know the principles by which men are 
 actuated. If this is so necessary in this country for a teacher, 
 it is greatly more necessary for a missionary labouring among 
 savages. A great many people make mistakes of this kind. 
 They expect, on the one hand, that the poor and the ignorant 
 should always be humble and grateful, ready to accept of any 
 place, and to submit to any treatment ; and on the other hand, 
 that the rich and the great only are likely to be proud. The 
 reverse of this is usually the case. Other things being equal, it
 
 MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 1 07 
 
 is among the poor and the ignorant that the proud are chiefly 
 found, so is it among savages. Our heathen natives were at first 
 all proud, and many of them extremely touchy. If one native 
 reproved or admonished another, no matter however justly, 
 the native reproved was very likely to get quite angry, and 
 say to his friends, " What right had So-and-so to speak to me 
 in that way 1 Had the missionary reproved me, or had the chief 
 spoken to me, or the teacher, I should have heard them and 
 done as they said. But for that creature a mere nobody, 
 for him. to speak that way to me is quite unbearable." With 
 such feelings among the natives, the politeness of a missionary 
 and his wife comes upon them with an agreeable surprise. 
 They do not expect it. But others have had similar surprises. 
 A few years ago the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of 
 England met in Manchester, when a committee of the friends 
 in that city made arrangements to have the members of the 
 Synod accommodated in private families, both with the view 
 of saving expense, and of creating an interest in the ministers 
 especially, among the leading members of the Church. Two 
 of the ministers were lodged with a family of our acquaintance, 
 excellent people, but who had not happened to come much in 
 contact with ministers. One day during the meeting of the 
 Synod, the lady of 'the house met with a lady friend, and told 
 her how delighted they were that the committee had sent two 
 of the ministers to them. They were such nice men. They 
 were so cheerful, so agreeable, so sensible, so pleasant in 
 conversation ; they never thought that ministers were such 
 nice men. The Christian culture and politeness of these two 
 ministers had left on the minds of the family a favourable 
 impression on behalf of the whole Christian ministry. But 
 it is not only savages, and well-to-do, but unobtrusive and
 
 IOS MODE OF TREATING NATIVES. 
 
 retiring Christians, who meet with these gratifying incidents, 
 sometimes eminent men are singularly ignorant of things out 
 of their own circle. The late Dean Stanley, when he was 
 visiting his wife's relations, the Earl of Elgin's family, at 
 Dunfermline, made the acquaintance of the late Rev. Dr. 
 Johnstone of Limekilns, and became very much attached to 
 him ; and he was wont to say, that if all Presbyterian 
 ministers were as intelligent, as tolerant, and as charitable in 
 their sentiments as Dr. Johnstone, it would be a pleasure to 
 associate with them. Now, there can be no doubt that, with- 
 out in the least depreciating Dr Johnstone's reputation, if the 
 learned Dean had possessed a wider acquaintance with Presby- 
 terian ministers, he would have found that a large proportion 
 of them were as intelligent, as liberal in spirit, and as charitable 
 in their feelings and sentiments as Dr. Johnstone himself. 
 But like our natives with the missionaries he was ignorant of 
 the class ; and, hence, those characteristics which indicated the 
 rule were looked upon by him as being the exception. Like 
 the Presbyterian lady in Manchester, he required a larger in- 
 duction of facts to remove his doubts, a greater amount of 
 Christian intercourse to convince him than was needed by the 
 good hostess of these country ministers. But the principle is 
 the same, and human nature is the same through all grades of 
 society. Christian culture is everywhere a power ; the minor 
 grace of politeness exerts an influence for good on the rude 
 savage, on the gentle lady, and on the learned dignitary ; it is 
 an influence in the same direction, if not in the same degree, 
 on those who squat in huts, on those who live in houses, on 
 those who dwell in deaneries, or on those who inhabit palaces.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NATURAL HISTOKY: CORAL TREES. 
 
 A FEW of the islands are of coral formation, and most of them 
 are surrounded by coral reefs. Specimens of the coral, both 
 white and red, may be often seen as curiosities in houses in 
 this country, but no one would think of comparing any of the 
 coral in those seas with that which Job refers to (chap, xxviii. 
 1 8) when he says, "No mention shall be made of coral, or of 
 pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies." We have all 
 heard of the coral insect, of the millions of those tiny masons 
 that have been toiling on, year after year, and age after age, 
 building up gigantic structures, compared with which the 
 tower of Babel, the wall of China, and the pyramids of Egypt 
 were like the toys and the playthings of children. Now there 
 is a great popular delusion abroad in connection with these so- 
 called coral insects. Most people think of them as plodding 
 away with the instinctive wisdom and the persevering industry 
 of bees building up their combs : or, like ants, raising their 
 hills, and filling their garners with food for the coming 
 winter; but this is not the case. The so-called insect is 
 a kind of polypus, more like a plant than an animal. It 
 cannot move from place to place, it is a fixture. The coral 
 is a mass of lime ; it is porous like a sponge ; every crevice, 
 every pore is filled with a gelatinous matter : this is all
 
 I 1 O NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. 
 
 covered with a very thin skin. At the outer extremity of 
 every pore, there is a small orifice or mouth, which is con- 
 tinually sucking in, or secreting the lime, which is held in 
 solution in the sea-water, and depositing it in the block 
 below, and in this way the lump of coral continues to grow ; 
 but it grows like a plant, not like the work of an insect. 
 When sailing in a boat over these coral reefs you seem, at 
 times, to be sailing over a coral garden. Many species, and 
 innumerable varieties, and of various colours, are seen growing 
 beneath the water, and yet, so far as I have observed, they all 
 belong to two classes, the branch coral and the brain coral, 
 the former like small branches without leaves, the latter in 
 shape and appearance like a human brain with the bone 
 removed, but of all sizes, from that of an egg to blocks of 
 many tons weight. Coral is found both dead and alive. 
 The dead coral is in masses and mountains of solid rock, but 
 containing, so far as I know, no organic remains. The live 
 coral is growing on the top of these dead rocks, near the 
 surface of the water. To prepare those beautiful specimens 
 that are exhibited as curiosities, you have to boil the piece 
 of live coral in fresh water with carbonate of soda, to loosen 
 the gelatinous matter, then wash it again and again in fresh 
 water, to remove all this matter, and finally expose it to the 
 sun to dry it. It then contains nothing but the skeleton of 
 this plant-like organism, and is in reality nothing but a lump 
 of limestone, but so exquisitely wrought, so marvellously 
 beautiful, that Solomon in all his glory could produce nothing 
 to equal it. Hiram with all his highly skilled workmen 
 could produce no castings, could execute no carvings, half so 
 cunning or half so curious as these. Coral thus prepared is " a 
 thing of beauty and a joy for ever." The live coral is the only
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. I I I 
 
 lime we have on the islands. We collect it out of the sea, 
 burn it with wood in large pits, and build, or plaster, or 
 white wash our houses with it as required. 
 
 TREES: THE COCOA-NUT. 
 
 Among the trees the cocoa-nut, the Goccos nucifera, is one of 
 the most beautiful and valuable trees on Aneityum. It is 
 found on all the South Sea Islands. It belongs to the family 
 of the palms, and grows most luxuriantly, especially near 
 the shore. It is an evergreen; hence the Psalmist employs 
 it as an emblem of the spiritual condition of the righteous. 
 
 " But like the palm tree flourishing 
 Shall be the righteous one." 
 
 " He shall be fat, and full of sap, 
 And aye be flourishing." 
 
 I have the names of twelve species, or distinct varieties, of 
 palms that grow on Aneityum. I may here remark that 
 many people pronounce this word as if it were written Ico-M-a, 
 in three syllables, with the accent on the second. But so 
 far as I have ever heard it named in the South Seas, it is 
 pronounced, as if within ko-ho, in two syllables, with the 
 accent on the first. The cocoa-nut is a beautiful tree. The 
 trunk grows up straight, without a branch or a twist, till 
 it reaches a height of fifty or sixty feet, with a fine spreading 
 crown of leaves, or rather branches, though usually called 
 leaves, interspersed with large clusters of fruit in all stages 
 of progress. It is always shedding its old leaves on branches, 
 as well as its fruit, and is always producing fresh ones ; hence 
 the whole year round you can stand, or sit, " 'neath the shade 
 of the feathery palm," although it is not safe to do either,
 
 1 1 2 NATURAL HISTORY I CORAL TREES. 
 
 lest a hard cocoa-nut should strike you on the head. Another 
 peculiarity of the cocoa-nut is, that it is, as all the palms are, 
 endogenous, it increases from within, and not from without. 
 It also carries the whole thickness of the trunk up with it 
 from the root. At the end of the first year's growth, the 
 trunk is as thick as it ever becomes. In all cold countries 
 the trees are exogenous they grow from without, their 
 addition of growth are all on the outside, as are seen in 
 the concentric rings, when a tree is sawn across; hence if 
 you bark a tree you kill it, but in tropical climates, a portion 
 of the trees are endogenous the new life, the new matter 
 that supplies growth, goes all up the centre ; and you may 
 cut the outside of a cocoa-nut as much as you choose, if you 
 leave the centre untouched, you do not kill the tree; but 
 if you injure the centre, or the top, it dies at once. The 
 easiest way to destroy a cocoa-nut tree, is to kill the central 
 growth at the top. On some islands in the South Seas, if 
 a man wishes to avenge himself secretly on his neighbour, 
 he climbs up one of his cocoa-nut trees, and places a dead 
 snake, or some dead animal, on the central growth of the 
 tree. The decaying animal matter kills this vital part of 
 the tree, and the whole tree dies, while, as in the case of 
 the enemy, who sowed the tares while men were asleep, the 
 author of the mischief is not discovered. In the case of 
 every new leaf or branch, when it comes out, it shoots directly 
 up to its full length, like a round spear ; when it reaches its 
 full length, the fibre that holds it together bursts, and the 
 branch expands. The branches are usually from about twelve 
 to fifteen feet long, with a row of leaflets on each side of 
 the stem, about two feet long each. Every part of the cocoa- 
 nut is useful its leaves, its wood, and its fruit. Its leaves
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. I I 3 
 
 are made into mats for floors, and they are also employed 
 as a thatch for houses ; its wood is not durable, but it is 
 employed usefully in various ways. I have seen a boat made 
 out of some species. On Aneityum one species of palm is 
 split up and used as small rafters for the roof of our churches, 
 mission, and other houses ; but it is its fruit the cocoa-nut 
 which constitutes its great value. Every part of the nut 
 is valuable; its husk is made into cordage by the natives, 
 and into door mats and brushes by Europeans. It is also 
 used like horse-hair for stuffing mattresses. When green the 
 husk of one species is of a sweet taste, and is greatly prized 
 by the natives when they are unwell : they chew the husk and 
 swallow the juice, and seem to be soothed by the operation. 
 The shell is made into cups and water-bottles. The liquor 
 which the nut contains when full grown and half ripe, which 
 is enough generally to fill one or two tumblers, is one of the 
 most delicious and refreshing drinks that is anywhere known : 
 it is of a slightly sweet and a slightly acid taste, something 
 like lemonade, but much finer. It is all but equal to the 
 juice of the grape, such as it must have been when pressed 
 into Pharaoh's cup by the chief butler. It is palm wine ; 
 and by most of the missionaries in the South Seas is used 
 at the Lord's Supper as a legitimate substitute for the fruit 
 of the vine, and greatly to be preferred to the brandified wine 
 of commerce. It is a wine that cheers but not inebriates. 
 The kernel is no less valuable ; as an article of diet it is to 
 the natives a substitute for both butter and meat, and as 
 an article of commerce it supplies the well-known cocoa-nut 
 oil, which is extensively used for so many purposes, in supply- 
 ing both the necessaries and luxuries of life. The kernel 
 is now generally dried, and is the cobra of commerce. Two
 
 ii4 NATURAL HISTORY: CORAL TREES. 
 
 hundred years ago the quaint but pious Herbert, as quoted by 
 Ellis in his valuable Polynesian Researches, sang : 
 
 " The Indian's nut alone 
 
 Is clothing, meat and trencher, drink and can, 
 Boat and cable, sail and needle, all in one." 
 
 What the reindeer is to the Greenlander, the cocoa-nut is to 
 the natives of the South Seas. 
 
 THE BREAD-FEUIT TREE. 
 
 The next of the most important trees on these islands is 
 the bread-fruit tree, artocarpus. It is also a beautiful tree ; 
 not unlike an ash tree in shape, except in the foliage. It 
 has large digitated leaves, every one spreading out like the 
 open hand of a mighty giant ; but hands, in comparison with 
 which, the hands of Goliath of Gath would have been like 
 that of an infant. The wood of the tree is of great use to 
 the natives. It is a soft wood and easily worked ; but it is 
 durable ; it is long before it rots. It is valuable for house- 
 building ; but it is chiefly prized by the natives for supplying 
 them with wood for making their canoes. On Aneityum the 
 canoes are all hollowed out of single trees ; and the bread- 
 fruit tree, being soft and easily worked, and at the same time 
 durable, is preferred to all others for that purpose. The chief 
 value of the tree, however, is its fruit. It is the staple 
 article of food for two, three, or four months in the year, 
 according as the crop is plentiful or otherwise, or as the 
 hurricanes may spare the fruit. There are two crops in the 
 year, a winter one and a summer one. The winter crop is 
 ripe about the months of July and August, and is a small 
 crop. The summer crop, which is a large one, comes on in 
 December or January, the latter being the month near the
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. I I 5 
 
 end of which hurricanes most frequently occur, and which 
 sometimes destroy the crop. The fruit is generally round or 
 oval, averaging about six inches in diameter, but there is a 
 considerable diversity in the size. It is called bread-fruit by 
 Europeans, because, in appearance and in consistency, it has 
 a considerable resemblance to fine wheaten bread. It is very 
 easily cooked ; it may be either boiled, steamed in the native 
 oven, or roasted on the embers. In heathen times the natives 
 of Aneityum and the Southern islands of the group had no 
 vessels in which to boil anything. Now they are procuring 
 pots, saucepans, kettles, &c. At Port Resolution on Tanna, 
 the natives cooked their food by immersing it in the boiling 
 springs till it was fit for being eaten. The natives frequently 
 lay their bread-fruit on the hot embers, and keep turning 
 it for fifteen or twenty minutes, or longer, according to cir- 
 cumstances. It is then perfectly cooked. They afterwards 
 scrape off the skin very gently, and you have then the finest 
 hot rolls either for breakfast or any other meal. You have 
 bread nearly pure white, only very slightly yellow, but 
 unadulterated, soft, delicious to the taste, wholesome and 
 nourishing. I have the names of thirty-two varieties of 
 bread-fruit growing on Aneityum. The fruit requires to be 
 eaten as fast as it ripens, as it cannot be kept fresh more 
 than a day or two after it is pulled. The fact that it has to 
 be eaten so soon, as well as its abundance, and its nutritious 
 qualities, has a good deal to do with the improved appearance 
 of the natives during the bread-fruit season ; for they get 
 quite fat, plump, and vigorous, especially during the con 
 tinuance of the summer crop. But they have a mode of 
 preserving the bread-fruit, either when the crop is very 
 plentiful and they cannot eat it all, or when the ripe fruit
 
 I I 6 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. 
 
 is blown down by a hurricane ; they dig pits about three or 
 four feet deep, and three feet in diameter, line them with 
 cocoa-nut leaves, cut up each bread-fruit into four pieces each, 
 and then cast them into these pits, cover the fruit with leaves 
 and earth. The fruit undergoes a kind of fermentation ; by 
 and by they take it out, work it up, and put it back again 
 into the pits and cover it up. When thus prepared it will 
 keep good for some months, and in the " hungry season," 
 when food is scarce, they take it out as they require it, knead 
 it up into little loaves, and cook it in the native oven. The 
 taste is strong, and the smell still more so, but when better 
 food is not plentiful, it supplies a want, and proves a good 
 stand by; it ekes out a scanty allowance, and serves as a 
 substitute till something better can be found. Providence 
 is kind to those simple islanders in supplying their many 
 wants. Paley's famous law of compensation comes often into 
 operation in their behalf, many are the resources on which 
 they can fall back, so that anything like a severe famine is 
 but seldom known ; hence they love their islands, enjoy their 
 bread-fruit, bask in the glowing sunshine, and bless the giver 
 of all good. 
 
 THE ORANGE. 
 
 Of the fruit trees introduced the orange family is that which 
 appears to thrive best. There is a native orange which grows 
 well, but which is so bitter that it cannot be eaten ; but on all 
 the islands the ordinary introduced oranges, of different kinds, 
 grow remarkably well. For several years the trees in my 
 garden produced from 20,000 to 30,000 oranges annually, and 
 the quality of the fruit was as excellent as the quantity was 
 large. On one occasion a gentleman from Victoria paid a
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. I I 7 
 
 visit to the New Hebrides, and stayed with us on Aneityum 
 for a couple of months or so, during the time the orange crop 
 was in season. He greatly relished our oranges ; but some 
 time afterwards he wrote me, that he had never been able to 
 relish an orange since, the Australian oranges were so poor 
 and insipid after those he had got on Aneityum. Now, if the 
 principles of Christianity were brought to bear with sufficient 
 power on the population of the New Hebrides, the orange 
 groves would soon become so extensive, that the commerce of 
 New Zealand would find it profitable to send down its smartest 
 running steamers to our islands ; we should fill them, and 
 flood that colony with the finest oranges, and drive the inferior 
 products of Australia completely out of that market. 
 
 THE SANDAL-WOOD. 
 
 The only other tree to which I shall advert at this time is 
 the sandal- wood tree, which at one time grew extensively on 
 the New Hebrides, especially on Eromanga and Espiritu Santo, 
 but which is now nearly all cut down. It is a scented wood, 
 a hard, knotty, and crooked tree, of slow growth, and does not 
 attain a large size, seldom more than ten or twelve inches in 
 diameter. It is a valuable article of commerce. It used to 
 bring from ^"30 to ^45 a ton in China. It was estimated 
 that one or two firms in Sydney realised as much as ; 70,000 
 for the sandal-wood which they obtained on Eromanga alone. 
 The Chinese manufacture the most workable part of the wood 
 into dressing-cases, work-boxes, and various articles of cui'ious 
 workmanship, while the shavings, parings, and other odds and 
 ends are collected, mixed with gums, and burned as incense 
 before their idols in their sacred temples. Referring to the
 
 I I 8 NATURAL HISTORY : CORAL TREES. 
 
 use of sandal-wood in this way for upholding idolatry, the 
 wife of a trader in the islands, who had been long engaged in 
 this business, a very clever, intelligent woman, remarked, 
 on one occasion, to the captain of the Dayspring, that she 
 thought, although it appeared to be a very paying business, 
 it was, after all, a very unlucky occupation to be employed in, 
 gathering firewood for the devil ; they had made three or four 
 fortunes, but they had as often lost them, and she believed 
 they would at last die in beggary. The sandal-wood tree, 
 according to Biblical botanists, is the same, or at least belongs 
 to the same family, as the algum or almug trees mentioned in 
 i Kings x. n, and 2 Chronicles ii. 8, ix. 10, 1 1, which Hiram's 
 ships brought to Solomon from Ophir, and with which the king 
 made rails for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, 
 harps also, and psalteries for singers. The sandal-wood trade 
 was a lucky business in those days. So far as we learn, none 
 of Hiram's ships were lost, and none of those engaged in the 
 trade became bankrupt, or died in beggary ; and why 1 because 
 instead of gathering firewood for the devil, they brought the 
 finest specimens of wood which the regions of the East could 
 supply, to furnish materials out of which to prepare the orna- 
 mental work for the temple of the Lord and the palace of the 
 king, and to make those instruments of music with which they 
 sounded the praises of Jehovah. The devil is a bad pay- 
 master ; but the Lord keeps and rewards those who serve Him. 
 In connection with the sandal- wood there is a beautiful saying, 
 or proverb, in the East Indies, where this scented tree grows. 
 They say, " A good man is like the sandal- wood tree as the 
 sandal-wood tree leaves a part of its fragrance on the axe 
 that cuts it down, so the good man leaves his blessing on the 
 head of the man that does him an injury."
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: CORAL TREES. I 19 
 
 In the New Hebrides there are no- cereals no wheat, no 
 barley, no oats ; none of these will grow there. Indian corn 
 or maize, however, has been introduced and grows well. But 
 notwithstanding this there is no lack of food; there is an 
 abundance of yams, taro, sweet potatoes, bananas, sugar cane, 
 and other productions. If the natives were Christianised 
 those islands would become the West Indies to Australia and 
 New Zealand. But the commercial value of those islands 
 depends almost entirely upon the natives being Christianised. 
 Where the natives are heathen there is no security for life 
 and property, and no reliable labour to be obtained ; but in 
 so far as Christianity is embraced by the natives, life and 
 property become secure, and reliable labour can be obtained 
 on the spot. European capital and native labour combined 
 would develop the resources of the islands.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: TARO. 
 
 I AM often asked, What is taro ? what is it like ? how does 
 it grow ? is it indigenous on the islands, or has it been intro- 
 duced ? is it good food 1 how is it cooked ? and a great many 
 other questions about it. Taro is the Arum esculentum of 
 botanists. It is the most highly prized food on Aneityum. 
 On some other islands the yam is the staple article of food, 
 but on Aneityum the taro holds the chief place. The natives 
 could not hold a feast without taro. They might have yams, 
 bread-fruit, bananas, plantains, horse-chestnuts, sweet potatoes, 
 sugar-cane, and every vegetable that is eaten, but without 
 taro the feast would not be complete. On one occasion I 
 was urging on a marriage, but the parties connected with it 
 pleaded for delay, for which I could see no reason. At last 
 one of the leading men took me aside, and said to me that 
 the taro was not ripe, and would not be ripe for two or three 
 months. "But," I said, "you have plenty of other food." 
 "Yes," he said, "but we could not have a marriage feast 
 without taro : it would never do." In the estimation of the 
 natives, it would have been as much out of place to have a 
 feast without taro, as for us to have a tea-party without 
 bread of any kind. Taro is a remarkably fine root. It grows 
 like a carrot or parsnip, but much larger, and it does not 
 taper at the lower end : it looks as if the point of the taro
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : TARO. I 2 I 
 
 were cut off straight across. A large taro is about the size 
 and shape of a man's arm from the elbow to the wrist. The 
 top leaves are not unlike those of a turnip, but they project 
 higher up ; while in colour they more resemble rhubarb, but 
 are smoother on the upper surface. The skin or rind is 
 black or brownish. The taro is an agreeable and nutritious 
 article of food, mealy or farinaceous like the best potatoes ; in 
 taste slightly different from the potato, but equally as plea- 
 sant as the potato. In colour the body of the taro is white 
 or slightly yellow. It is indigenous both on Aneityum and 
 everywhere in the South Seas. Dr. Thomson, an eminent 
 army surgeon, while stationed in Auckland, wrote a book on 
 New Zealand, in which he said that taro contained twice as 
 much nutriment as the potato, pound for pound. If New 
 Zealand taro was so much superior to the potato, I feel 
 certain that Aneityum taro will contain three times as much 
 nourishment as the potato, weight for weight. Taro grows 
 both on dry ground and on marshy. It is of all sizes, from 
 three inches to twelve or fifteen, and is proportionate in 
 thickness, from one to three or four inches in diameter. It 
 grows best on marshy ground, but it must be surrounded 
 with running not stagnant water. It needs constant irriga- 
 tion, hence the common or public canals have to be kept in 
 constant repair. Taro is a slow growing plant. It takes 
 nearly a twelvemonth to come to maturity ; when taken out 
 of the ground it can be kept fresh, and good for eating, for 
 little more than a week ; but then it grows all the year round. 
 The natives are always taking it up, and always planting it 
 anew ; but it grows much faster in summer than in winter. 
 It is propagated in two ways : either by planting the shoots 
 or small tubers that grow around the principal roots, or by
 
 122 NATURAL HISTORY: THE YAM. 
 
 planting the stalk or top of the plant when the root has been 
 cut off. The latter is the method which the natives generally 
 prefer. The taro can be cooked either by boiling it in a pot, 
 steaming it in the native oven, or by roasting on the embers. 
 When cold, it is best heated by cutting it into slices, and 
 heating it in the frying-pan. In my lexicon I have seventy 
 different names for the varieties of taro, and probably the 
 natives have more than those. 
 
 THE YAM. 
 
 The yam, the Dioscoria alata of botanists, is not much cul- 
 tivated on Aneityum, but on parts of Tanna it is the staple 
 food. As a general rule the yam is cultivated as a staple 
 article of food on the low flat coral islands where water is 
 scarce, and the taro on the high volcanic islands where water 
 is plentiful. The yam, like the taro, is of all sizes ; but the 
 larger roots are three or four times larger than the largest 
 taro. Some species or varieties are farinaceous or mealy, 
 resembling taro; but, as a general rule, the yam is much 
 softer in texture and more watery than the taro. In its 
 substance the yam is granular, which the taro is not. The 
 yam, however, is in one respect quite different from the taro, 
 it does not ripen all the year round ; there is only one crop 
 in the year, but then the yams can be kept good for several 
 months. The skin of the yam is very tender, and is easily 
 injured, and if the skin is broken, the yam soon begins to rot 
 and decay ; the natives, therefore, handle them with great 
 care ; they handle them as tenderly as they would do eggs, if 
 they mean to keep them. Yams are cooked in the same way 
 as taro, but they contain only about half the nourishment of
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: THE YAM. 123 
 
 taro, weight for weight. They are cultivated quite differently 
 from taro. Taro grows best on land over which water is 
 running, yams grow best on light, dry, sandy, or volcanic soil. 
 The natives on Aneityum form a mound from six to ten feet 
 in diameter, and about three feet high in the centre, the earth 
 being first thoroughly pulverised. They plant the seed yam 
 around the mound, the eye of the seed being slightly exposed. 
 The tops of the yams are long slender vines with small leaves. 
 When the vines begin to grow, the natives prepare a frame 
 or a lattice-work of reeds, about a foot high or so above the 
 ground, and stretching away on one side of the mound to a 
 distance of from twelve to twenty feet, which in due time is 
 densely covered with foliage. 
 
 When I was in New Zealand, and was contemplating going 
 to the New Hebrides, my much respected and highly esteemed 
 friend, the Rev. James Watkin of the Wesleyan Mission, who 
 had lived several years as a missionary on the Tongan group 
 islands famous for fine yams in the way of giving me 
 information and encouragement about the New Hebrides, and 
 what the advantages of the field would be, said, " In the matter 
 of native food you will get so-and-so," enumerating a few of the 
 most important and attractive items, and then said finally, 
 with great emphasis, " And you will get yams ! " Some of the 
 missionaries, on the yam-growing islands on the New Hebrides 
 and on the Loyalty Islands, used also to speak in glowing terms 
 of the yams on their respective islands, and no doubt truthfully, 
 as they felt. But as I lived on a taro-growing, not on a yam- 
 producing island, and as the taste for yams is to some extent 
 an acquired taste, whereas the taste for taro, like that for 
 potatoes, is to most people a natural taste, I never acquired 
 the taste for yams, and always preferred the taro to the yam.
 
 124 NATURAL HISTORY: THE BANANA. 
 
 But the old Latins said : De gustibus non disputandum, and we 
 continue to say, as if it were an English proverb, " There is no 
 disputing about tastes ; " but be that as it may, one thing is 
 undisputable, that the yam is a most valuable esculent root. 
 
 THE BANANA. 
 
 The banana, Musa sapientum, is a herbaceous plant which 
 grows luxuriantly everywhere throughout the South Sea 
 Islands. It is propagated from shoots or suckers, and most of 
 the species or varieties attain a height of from twelve to fifteen 
 feet or more. The stock or stem is from six to nine inches in 
 diameter. The banana is not a tree, but the stem or body of 
 the plant is formed of a number of soft concentric layers, about 
 half an inch in thickness, somewhat resembling a thick-necked 
 onion. The leaves are long and pendent, from four to six 
 feet long, and about two feet broad. When slightly heated 
 over the fire they are soft, tough, and flexible as cloth, and 
 are employed by the natives in wrapping up puddings and 
 other articles of food, to preserve the juice from being lost, 
 when cooked in the native ovens. There is only one bunch of 
 fruit on each plant, but it contains about a hundred bananas, 
 more or fewer, from six to nine inches in length, somewhat 
 like a cucumber : the fruit, as well as the leaves, when 
 growing, is of a beautiful pea-green colour, and when ripe a 
 rich bright yellow. The bunch is cut as soon as one or two 
 of the bananas begin to change colour ; it is hung up in the 
 house for a week or so, and by that time the whole bunch is 
 yellow and fit for use. When ripe they may be eaten either 
 raw, or baked as a pudding in a dish, and eaten with milk. 
 The taste is delicious, something like a very fine ripe pear, but
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : THE BANANA. I 2 5 
 
 in substance softer. Everybody likes it from the very first. In 
 my lexicon I have the native names for forty-five different 
 species or varieties of bananas. In Samoa they have more 
 than fifty. The banana, it is said, produces more nutritious 
 substance in the same space than any other plant. In Mexico, 
 Hurnboldt calculated that an acre of ground planted with 
 bananas was sufficient to support fifty men, whilst the same 
 extent of land in wheat would barely supply the wants of three, 
 or if planted with potatoes to support nine. On Aneityum, as 
 far as we could judge, we found that the banana was as prolific 
 as Humboldt found it to be in Mexico. Our garden of about 
 half an acre, planted with bananas, went far to feed from 
 twenty to thirty young people living on our premises. We 
 had, on an average, two bunches a day, or about seven hundred 
 bunches in the year ; and most certainly nothing else that we 
 could have cultivated would have been anything like So pro- 
 ductive. 
 
 There is one banana known by the name of the " Chinese 
 banana," "most probably," says Mr. Mills, "the Musa caven- 
 disliii, the origin of which is said to be the Isle of France," 
 which was introduced into the South Seas half a century ago, 
 which has been a great boon to the natives, which has been 
 highly appreciated, and has spread over the islands with great 
 rapidity. When the apostolic John Williams left England in 
 the Gamden in 1838, an English nobleman, the Duke of Devon- 
 shire, presented him with some boxes of plants for the benefit 
 of the mission. These were landed in Samoa till Mr. Williams 
 should have time to dispose of them. They remained unopened 
 till after his martyrdom on Eromanga, when they were opened 
 by the Rev. W. Mills, a man of eminent scientific tastes ; but 
 every plant was dead except one shoot of the Chinese banana ;
 
 126 NATURAL HISTORY: THE BANANA. 
 
 but this proved to be a priceless treasure. Mr. Mills planted 
 it out, and tended it with great care. At the end of a year it 
 produced a bunch weighing nearly a hundred pounds. When 
 its value was discovered, every chief in Samoa, and every 
 missionary on the group, was eager to obtain shoots, and in 
 a short time this new banana was known in every part of 
 Samoa; and thenceforth every teacher that was sent forth 
 to any heathen island carried with him a small basket with 
 a few shoots of this banana as part of his outfit, till they 
 were introduced into every group from the Society Islands on 
 the east to the New Hebrides and the Loyalty Islands on the 
 west; from Savage Islands on the south to the groups of 
 islands on the line, and I have no doubt that by this time 
 they are to be found along the whole of the south-west coast 
 of New Guinea. The Chinese bananas possess two advan- 
 tages over the native bananas. They are of a finer quality, 
 and they grow to little more than half the height of the 
 native banana, and hence are not so easily blown down and 
 destroyed by hurricanes. 
 
 When we went to Aneityum, and were settled on our 
 station of Aname, Amosa, the Samoan teacher, had a fine 
 bunch of Chinese bananas in his garden. As soon as it was 
 fully ripe he brought it in a present to us as an offering of 
 welcome. We were afraid to accept of it, not knowing how 
 we should be able to repay the good man for such a rare and 
 valuable present. When our garden, a small one at first, 
 was prepared, Amosa, Tavita, Williamu and others, gathered 
 up among them thirteen small shoots of the Chinese banana 
 and planted them. Eleven months after this we cut the first 
 ripe bunch of our own. We never planted any kind but the 
 Chinese. By the end of a year the suckers numbered sixty
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: THE BANANA. 127 
 
 or seventy, and from that time forward we began and gave 
 them away right and left till there was not a native on the 
 island who had not Chinese bananas, Nohos Saina, as they 
 called them. 
 
 But our bananas were made to serve another and a higher 
 purpose in connection with the mission. Towards the end 
 of the first decade of missionary operations on the island, a 
 party of Tannese came over to Aneityum in the John Knox 
 on a visit. Our chiefs and teachers were very attentive to 
 them, and showed them everything that was worth being 
 seen, our garden among the rest. "Look here," said one 
 of the chiefs, "see what bananas the missionary has. You 
 on Tanna think that if you take the Gospel you will have 
 no food, but look at the missionary's garden; you all know 
 that in three years our gardens are grown out, and will bear 
 no more, but the missionary's garden has been growing for 
 seven years, and it is still as good as ever, and why 1 because 
 of his. Christianity : the Gospel does not keep the food from 
 growing, as your sacred men tell you. The chief overlooked 
 the fact that, like the dresser of the vineyard in the parable, 
 we had been digging about them and dunging them, that 
 every day we had buried around their roots all the dung 
 produced by our cows and our goats, and in this way pre- 
 served the fertility of the soil. The argument from the 
 bananas, ill applied though it had been, was, however, more 
 convincing to the Tannese than a whole volume on the 
 evidences. Taura the chief went home, and went over all his 
 ten lands, publishing what he had seen on Aneityum ; and, 
 according to the native accounts that came back to us, from 
 the south of Tanna to the west, from Kwamera to Black 
 Beach, Taura's words shook the whole land. And had the
 
 I 2 8 NATURAL HISTORY : THE PLANTAIN. 
 
 disposition to receive the truth on the part of the Tannese 
 been as strong as the demonstration was clear, all that part 
 of Tanna had become Christian ; but alas ! it was then as it 
 had been of old, no mighty work was done because of their 
 unbelief. 
 
 THE PLANTAIN. 
 
 The plantain, Musa paradisiaca, grows only to a limited 
 extent on Aneityum. I have the names of only six species 
 or varieties. The plantain grows only in the inland districts, 
 I never saw it growing near the shore. The fruit grows in 
 quite a different manner from that of the banana. The bunch 
 of fruit on the banana after it comes out, turns over and 
 hangs down from the top towards the ground, but the bunch 
 of fruit on the plantain projects straight up, "The plan 
 tain or banana," says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, " belongs 
 botanically to the same family as Manilla hemp, but its fibre 
 is not so fine. By adequate preparation, however, it may 
 be made into fabrics of elegant appearance, as well as more 
 coarse and strong ones. Hitherto, it would seem, little care 
 has been bestowed on the preparation and assortment of the 
 fibres. The extraordinary productiveness of this plant as 
 a food-producer has been the sole reason of its cultivation, 
 but every plant yields from three to four pounds of fibre, the 
 utilising of which needs only labour and care." Our practice 
 has been this : when we cut the fruit, we immediately cut 
 down the stem also, and throw it into a pit to be converted 
 into manure ; but had we utilised the fibre, my garden, 
 assuming Humboldt's calculations to be correct, would not 
 only have fed twenty- five natives, but produced from a ton 
 to a ton and a half of fibre equal to Manilla hemp. And if
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: THE PLANTAIN. 129 
 
 the French would only let us alone, and if the Labour Traffic 
 would only cease, we might have a hemp manufactory on 
 every island, as well as twenty other industries. The com- 
 mercial value of the islands, were they first christianised, and 
 life and property secure, and labour obtainable, have never yet 
 been calculated ; but it would be immense. 
 
 ARROWROOT. 
 
 Arrowroot, or more properly, as some say Arree root, is 
 indigenous in the New Hebrides, and in most of the islands 
 of the South Seas. The bulbs are very like those of potatoes, 
 but the stalks and leaves are different : they grow up in a 
 bunch to the height of about two feet. Arrowroot cannot be 
 reckoned as a food for people in health ; but for infants and 
 invalids it is valuable. Its medicinal properties are great; as 
 a diffusive . stimulant for removing chills, and restoring heat 
 to the body, it acts as speedily and as powerfully as brandy, 
 without any of its reactionary and injurious effects. Dr. See- 
 man, in his very able work on Fiji, says "it is invaluable in 
 cases of dysentery and diarrhoea, the bane of the South Seas," 
 (he should have said of Fiji only), but " it is necessary to 
 have it genuine." There are two kinds of arrowroot in Fiji, 
 there are the same in the New Hebrides, but in neither group 
 do the natives make any difference in preparing the bulbs 
 for flour, any more than we should in this country between 
 two kinds of potatoes in the making of potato starch. The 
 Bermuda arrowroot is universally recognised as the best that 
 comes to this country, and is sold at three shillings and 
 sixpence a pound if not more. When we were living in 
 London in 1877 we were introduced by our friend Canon
 
 130 NATURAL HISTORY: ARROWROOT. 
 
 Tristram to the widow and daughter of a missionary, who 
 had laboured along with him in Bermuda under the Church 
 Missionary Society, and who annually received from their 
 friends a small quantity of the genuine Bermuda arrowroot. 
 My wife and they made an exchange between the Bermuda 
 and Aneityum arrowroot, that they might both compare them 
 respectively. They did so, but each of them preferred their 
 own. Both kinds were genuine, both were good ; and they 
 concluded that each preferred that to which they had been 
 most accustomed. But the Bermuda and the Aneityum were 
 evidently different species of the same plant. The Aneityum 
 contained the most starch, which renders it so valuable in 
 bowel complaints : but the Bermuda must possess some other 
 properties which enhance its general value so much. The 
 supply of Bermuda arrowroot is very limited. It is said that 
 there is more port wine drunk in London than all that is 
 produced in Portugal; so it is affirmed that there is more 
 Bermuda arrowroot used in London than all that is made 
 in Bermuda, and it can be bought cheaper in some places 
 in London than it can be bought in Bermuda itself. Such 
 are some of the achievements of commerce ! The Aneityum 
 and Fiji arrowroot is the Tacca pinnatifida of the botanists. 
 The Bermuda, I presume, is the Maranta arundinacea, 
 "which," it is said, "comes to us from the warmer regions 
 of the New World." 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century the natives of 
 Aneityum have prepared arrowroot and made a contribution 
 of it, first for the payment of their Bibles, and next to assist 
 in sending the Gospel to the heathen on the other islands. 
 During the three years that my station was vacant, the 
 natives made the average quantity of arrowroot, and prepared
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ARROWROOT. 131 
 
 it with as much care as when we were living among them. 
 It is true the Rev. Joseph Annand was living on the other 
 side of the island, and exercised very efficiently a general 
 superintendence over them, weighed the arrowroot, and put 
 it carefully up in casks ; but the chief responsibility fell upon 
 the natives themselves. To the friends and supporters of the 
 mission, the history of the arrowroot movement, even had 
 there been nothing else, would have been accepted as a satis- 
 factory proof that the Christianity of the natives was genuine. 
 I have been told by those who ought to know, that there is 
 no foreign mission station belonging to the Free Church, 
 where the contributions for the extension of the Gospel are 
 proportionately so liberal, as those made by the natives of 
 Aneityum; and these are all made in arrowroot. I have 
 elsewhere stated how Mrs. Inglis learned to make the arrow- 
 root from Tutau, the wife of a Rarotongan teacher; how she 
 taught the natives on the following year ; and how the pro- 
 cess went on till it became a settled industry, a standing 
 institution, and a part of the mission. It is now made on 
 every island where Christianity has got a firm footing. It is 
 made like potato starch. I had twenty-eight schools, and 
 every teacher and his people made a contribution. It was 
 done in this way. At the proper time they made a plantation 
 of arrowroot ; when it was ripe they dug it up, and prepared 
 it at the rate of four or five schools each week. The natives 
 provided the raw material and I provided zinc tubs, buckets, 
 graters, sheets, bags, tables, and casks, and what might be 
 called the plant of the manufactory. The Teachers' Institution 
 was utilised for three months during the vacation for drying 
 the arrowroot. In order that it might be made properly, 
 I provided everything that the natives did not themselves
 
 132 NATURAL HISTORY: ARROWROOT. 
 
 possess. Being thus assisted they went to the work with a 
 will. I also appointed two of the most active and trust- 
 worthy of the natives to attend to the drying, sifting, weigh- 
 ing, and packing of the arrowroot. The process was as 
 follows. I shall describe it as it was done at my station. 
 On Monday morning the natives collected all the ripe arrow- 
 root. Then so many of them were told off to collect food and 
 make an oven for the whole party, that they might be strong 
 for the work ; another party, mostly of women and girls, 
 were appointed to wash the tubers, and scrape the skin off, 
 and then grate them to a pulp ; a third party of strong men 
 and boys undertook to strain the grated matter through a 
 thin cloth into tubs. It was night before the work was done. 
 This was the great day. The tubs were all left full. On the 
 Tuesday morning the men returned and found the arrowroot 
 all sunk to the bottom of the tubs, and the water almost pure. 
 This they poured off, and filled the tubs again with fresh 
 water, and stirred up the sediment till it was all mixed with 
 the water. This process was repeated two or three times 
 during the course of the day; at night it was again all 
 strained through the thin cloth, so that no mote or impurity 
 of any kind should be found in the arrowroot. On Wednesday 
 morning the water was again poured off, and the pure arrow- 
 root was ready for being dried. When first strained the 
 arrowroot is bitter and poisonous, at least fowls eating it die ; 
 but when the water has been changed on it five or six times 
 it is sweet, or tasteless, and perfectly wholesome. In the 
 backyard of our Teachers' Institution tables had been erected ; 
 first rough frames had been fixed up, about three feet high. 
 These were covered with old reed fencing, being a wicker 
 work about four feet broad ; large fresh banana leaves were
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ARROWROOT. 133 
 
 spread on these tables, and the lumps of wet but still solid 
 arrowroot were laid on the leaves, and exposed to the sun, 
 and before night it was so far dried that it could be removed 
 from the leaves, broken up by the hands, and spread out on 
 cotton sheets, which my wife had prepared for the purpose. 
 Meanwhile, we had the Teachers' Institution prepared with 
 tables, by placing the forms across the floor, and covering 
 them with boards on which the sheets and the arrowroot could 
 be spread out at night, or on wet days ; the windows were 
 all opened ; and hence it could be put out or in as required in 
 the shortest time. On the Thursday morning the two men 
 appointed to watch it had it all spread out on the tables, and 
 exposed to the sun ; and, if the weather was good, by Satur- 
 day it was fit for being sifted, and could be rolled up during 
 the Sabbath, without being injured. If rolled up wet it soon 
 became heated and discoloured ; but if the weather was un- 
 favourable, and it was still damp, it was spread out on the 
 sheets, on those tables in the house, and covered with other 
 sheets to prevent dust falling on it. If the weather was 
 good it was fit for being put into casks by the end of a fort- 
 night ; but if the weather was wet or showery, it was three 
 weeks or a month before it was quite dry. The same process 
 was gone through in all the twenty-eight schools. The 
 teachers and the natives got the arrowroot all made and 
 washed at their respective lands, but it was all brought to 
 the mission station to be dried and finished up. The planting 
 and the making was all done by the general public ; the two 
 or three men whom I appointed to watch it, and whom I 
 paid for their work, did all the rest. The time required for 
 the whole process was fully two months. The time that each 
 person gave to the work was in general three or four days.
 
 I 34 NATURAL HISTOKY : ARROWROOT. 
 
 They had little or no money, but they gave their labour with- 
 out grudging. In all that we got them to do for the mission, 
 we tried to spread the labour as widely as possible, that it 
 might touch the whole community, but touch each person as 
 lightly as might be touch them so lightly that it was never 
 felt to be oppressive ; and thus what they did for the Gospel 
 was felt to be a privilege and not a burden. If wise arrange- 
 ments are made, it is astonishing how much help may be 
 cheerfully obtained to advance the kingdom of Christ.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 
 
 HAD the Eev. Gilbert White, M.A., the eminent naturalist 
 of last century, lived on our island, he would no doubt have 
 made the Natural History of Aneityum as interesting and as 
 well known as the Natural History of Selbourne ; and Sir 
 William Jardine, Bart., of Jardine Hall, would have brought 
 out a new edition of the book, with additions, and have in- 
 terested scientific observers with his many important facts. 
 But as I am writing only a chapter on this subject, and not 
 a book, and as I have not had time to make any extensive 
 observations, I shall confine myself to a very few specimens. 
 Mr. White regretted that he lived in an inland locality, far 
 from, the sea or any large river, and hence had to confine 
 his observations to land animals, and could give no account 
 of those inhabiting the waters. On the other hand, as I 
 resided always on the sea-shore, I shall say little of land 
 animals, but confine myself chiefly to denizens of the sea. 
 The only indigenous quadrupeds on the island are a small 
 rat, and perhaps the pig. The British or Norway rat has, 
 however, made good his residence on the island. There is 
 no tradition as to the origin of the pig on Aneityum, but 
 as its name is pigafh, which may be a corruption of pig or 
 piggy i it looks very like as if English were its origin. Among 
 the Malays the name for pig is everywhere puaka, which
 
 136 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 
 
 some regard as a corruption of pork, although other deriva- 
 tions have been suggested. There are four kinds of lizards 
 on the island ; the smallest, which is very beautiful, is about 
 six inches long ; the largest is from a foot to eighteen inches. 
 There are three species of bats, one smaller than our common 
 bat, a second called the stinking bat, and the third a large 
 species, generally called the flying fox. When flying it seems 
 larger than a common crow. It is fat and good eating, much 
 prized by the natives, but has a very offensive smell. There 
 are two species of swallows, both smaller than the swallows 
 in this country ; they never migrate, but remain on the 
 island all the year round. There are four species of pigeons, 
 one a small species, but remarkably beautiful, fully realising 
 the description of the psalmist 
 
 " Whose wings with silver, and with gold 
 Whose feathers covered are " 
 
 these colours being laid on a ground of the loveliest green. 
 There are two species of hawks, about the ordinary size of 
 hawks in this country. There is no hawk on Tanna, though 
 only forty miles distant. Hence hawk feathers are a standing 
 article of export from Aneityum to Tanna ; they are in great 
 demand for making plumes with which to adorn the heads 
 of the Tannese chiefs. There are two species of owls, one 
 larger and one smaller ; there is one or more species of 
 paroquet, a heron, gulls and other sea-birds, and several 
 species of small birds resembling the robin or the linnet, 
 but rather smaller. There is also a very small bird just like 
 a wren. There is a bird called the Lau-aing, resembling a 
 water-hen ; its feathers are black and its legs yellow, its 
 beak like that of a common fowl. Like the ostrich, " she
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 137 
 
 layetli her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the 
 dust." When hatched, the young ones seek food for them- 
 selves, but only a few of them live. The habits of this bird 
 furnish the basis for a proverb : the natives say of a mother 
 who neglects her children, " Et ithivaing lau-aing aien," She is 
 just like a Lau-aing. I have the native names of more than 
 forty species of birds, of more than seventy species of sea- 
 fish, of more than thirty species of fresh-water fish, and over 
 seventy species of shell-fish. The natives are great fishers ; 
 around all the island, twice a day, at low water, in good 
 weather, they are out on the reef especially the women 
 gathering shell-fish; these are a standing and much- prized 
 article of food. 
 
 There are no poisonous reptiles on the island. There are 
 two species of serpents. The one, called the Nimyeuv, is found 
 in the woods, chiefly on the mountains; in colour it is brown on 
 the back and yellow on the belly; the other, called the Nispeuv, 
 is found on the shore, chiefly among rocks, and is to some 
 extent amphibious in its habits; its colour is formed by a 
 succession of alternate black and grey bands round the body 
 of an elegant appearance. Both of them, when full-grown, 
 are found from two and a half to four feet in length, but the 
 bite of neither of them is poisonous. There is, however, a 
 small shell-fish called the Inhaag, which contains a virulent 
 poison. This fish is a gasteropod, and inhabits a univalve, 
 cone-shaped, spiral shell, about two inches in length. It does 
 not bite, or inflict any wound ; but when disturbed, it blows 
 out its poison, which seems to be a vapour rather than a liquid. 
 It is generally the hand that comes in contact with the 
 poisonous matter. In a short time the hand becomes painful 
 and swells ; then the swelling extends up the arm, and finally
 
 I3 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 
 
 the whole body becomes affected, and, unless prompt measures 
 are adopted, death follows in a few hours. In the year 1855, 
 from January ist till April ist, out of thirteen deaths four 
 were occasioned by the poisoning of the Inhaag. In three of 
 these cases the persons were dead in less than twelve hours. 
 In the case of the fourth, a strong man, he lingered for a 
 fortnight, and then died. The native treatment was to band- 
 age the arm and to make incisions. I used oil copiously, both 
 internally and externally, and often with good effect. But I 
 wrote to my friend, the late Dr. Logan of Wellington, New 
 Zealand, a retired navy surgeon, asking his advice. He advised 
 me to try the remedy employed in Africa for the bite of the 
 rattlesnake, which is to dig a hole in soft earth, place the 
 arm in the hole up to the shoulder, then fill up with earth, 
 and let the arm remain buried for four or five hours. This 
 was like applying a large poultice, and it seemed to act 
 accordingly and draw the virus out of the part affected. I 
 instructed the natives in the application of this remedy, and 
 for many long years before we left the island I never heard of 
 a death caused by the Inliaag, Accidents generally occurred 
 in this way. Around the whole island, the natives, as I 
 have said, at low tide, by night or by day, or both, as it may 
 happen, go out in great numbers in search of shell-fish. The 
 Inliaag, like the other shell-fish, lies generally in the sand or 
 among the stones; and when searching for other fish, they 
 occasionally disturb it. If they see it, they are in no danger ; 
 they can catch it with impunity at the spiral or closed end of 
 the shell, as it then squirts out its poison in the opposite 
 direction ; and after the ejection of the poison it is harmless, 
 and the natives even cook them and eat them without any 
 danger. The Inliaag is not plentiful ; otherwise nobody would
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 139 
 
 be safe ; and as it is, I have reason to think that carelessness 
 is often the cause of accidents with this fish. The number 
 of cases of poisoning in 1855 was unusually great. The sea 
 had frequently receded very far at low tide, and the natives 
 at those times went far out into new ground, where, like 
 other shell-fish, the Inhaag was more numerous than in the 
 old fishing-ground, and the danger in the same proportion 
 greater. 
 
 At certain times different kinds of fish appear to be more 
 or less poisonous, though quite wholesome at other times, 
 apparently as they are in or out of season. After eating 
 them, at these times, the natives become very sick, and soon 
 after the sickness is over their hands and feet are daily 
 affected with sharp pains, and are rendered more or less 
 powerless. Some fish are recognised as always poisonous, 
 others as always good, and a third class as poisonous at times 
 only. Mrs. Paton of Aniwa and some of her children were 
 nearly killed on one occasion by eating a poisonous fish which 
 they understood to be a good one. After the severe sickness 
 was over a rash came out on their skin, and for a long time 
 they felt now and again cramps and a prickly sensation in 
 their hands and feet. There seems to be a perfect infatuation 
 among some natives to eat fish, even when they know them 
 to be poisonous. Even Ester, one of the most sensible women 
 on Aneityum, nearly poisoned herself in this way. For many 
 a day her hands and feet were occasionally benumbed. Mrs. 
 Inglis said to her, " Ester, did you not know that that fish 
 was poisonous?" "Oh yes," she said, " Iknew." "What, then, 
 made you eat it ? " " Oh," she said, " I cannot tell ; I was so 
 eager to eat fish that I could not keep myself from it, though 
 I knew the danger." On one occasion I knew of a native
 
 140 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 
 
 who caught a decidedly poisonous fish, and knew it to be so, 
 and yet he cooked it and ate it, though every native in the 
 place remonstrated with him; and he was dead in twelve 
 hours. On Aneityum the liver of the shark is very poisonous. 
 It makes excellent lamp oil, is purer and burns better than 
 train-oil ; but after melting the liver and making the oil, the 
 natives are so afraid of the poison, lest it should injure their 
 food, when they touch their food with their hands, that they 
 not only wash their hands thoroughly, but they hold them 
 over the smoke of a fire for a considerable time to remove the 
 last taint of the poison. On one occasion, Pita, one of our 
 Samoan teachers, got the liver of a shark, had it cooked, and 
 ate it. All the natives protested, and remonstrated with him 
 to the utmost. His poor wife wept and cried. "O Pita," 
 she said, "if you eat that fish, and poison yourself, and die, 
 what is to become of me and these poor children in this 
 strange land?" "Oh," said Pita, "the sharks are not 
 poisonous in Samoa, and why should they be poisonous 
 here ? " In the face of all this opposition, eat it he would, 
 and eat it he did. We, in our different circumstances, cannot 
 understand the fish- crave that dominates those ichthyopha- 
 gists, those fish- eating islanders. We knew nothing of all 
 this, but shortly after midnight we heard a rap at our bed- 
 room window. It was Pita's wife. " O Misi," she said in 
 the most plaintive tones, " Pita is dying ; do come and pray 
 with us." I rose at once and went with her. Pita had all 
 the appearance of a dying man, and I prayed with him as 
 such, and administered such medicines as seemed most suit- 
 able. He was a strong, powerful, healthy man, in the prime 
 of life ; he survived and recovered ; he escaped, as it were, 
 with the skin of his teeth. His pulse had come down to
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: ANIMALS. 141 
 
 about fifty, and continued at that for some time. Among my 
 medicines I had a bottle of brandy, which had remained there 
 for some years unopened. Acting on the authority of medical 
 books, I administered small doses of this stimulant several 
 times daily, till the contents of the bottle were nearly 
 exhausted, and the pulse had risen to something approaching 
 its normal condition. Pita lived many years after this, and 
 finally returned to Samoa ; but he never became quite his 
 former self he carried the effects of that poisoning with him 
 to his grave. 
 
 In the stream that runs past the mission station at Aname 
 a flood, on one occasion, by carrying away quantities of mud, 
 laid bare two enormous shells, which, when the water subsided, 
 I got the natives to carry out, and place one on each side of 
 the garden-walk in front of the mission-house. Unless I 
 am very much astray in my conchology, these shells were 
 specimens of the chatna gigas, or gigantic cockle, the largest 
 and heaviest shell yet discovered. They appear to have been 
 first seen by Captain Flinders in the Indian Ocean, although 
 before that time Captain Cook found shells of the same kind 
 on the Great Barrier reef on the east of Australia. They 
 were so large and so strong, that when his seamen placed a 
 piece of a ship's cable in the opening or mouth of the shell, 
 the animal snapped it in two as easily as Samson did the 
 green withes with which the Philistines bound him. "We 
 have seen," says Maunder in his " Treasury of Natural 
 History," " an immense pair in the church of St. Sulspice in 
 Paris, where they serve to hold holy water." This shell, he 
 says, is also called Tridacna. Why this name was applied to 
 it is not to me at all obvious. According to Ains worth, 
 Tridacna, or Ostrea tridacna, means shells that can be eaten at
 
 142 NATURAL HISTORY : ANIMALS. 
 
 three bites ; but if the animal that lives in the chamas gigas 
 was ever eaten at three bites, it must have been by some of 
 the giants who warred against Jupiter, and who heaved up 
 Ossa on the top of Pelion, and compared to whom Goliath must 
 have been a pigmy ; or by some of the less fabulous megatJieria, 
 which basked in the sun and disported themselves in the 
 deltas during the far remote palaeozoic ages recorded in 
 the chronicles of geology. Those two shells, which were not 
 mates, were each four feet long, two feet seven inches broad, 
 and nine inches thick at the umbo. I had not the means of 
 weighing them, but each of them was as much as two men 
 could with some difficulty lift up from the ground. Some 
 time afterwards I found single shells apparently of the same 
 species, but not quite so large ; and there were others which I 
 did not see, but of whose existence the natives informed me, 
 and which were imbedded in the sands or adhering to the reefs. 
 Small bivalves that is, small compared with these either 
 of the same or of a similar species, from six to twelve or 
 fifteen inches long, are found alive, adhering to the reefs in 
 great numbers ; but no live specimens of this large size were 
 ever seen on the island, even by the oldest natives. Being 
 so large, they could not be numerous, and hence the natives 
 would easily kill them out. " A number of those cockles," 
 says Captain Flinders, "were taken on board the ship, and 
 stewed in the coppers, but they were too rank to be agreeable 
 food, and were eaten by few." But on Aneityum, where the 
 natives pick the bones of a whale as neatly as they do the 
 bones of a herring, a Tridacna would not stand them long. 
 The native name of those shells is nipjineri ; but the two which 
 I obtained were worshipped as natmases, or gods, in the days 
 of heathenism, by the name of Nethuing. From time imme-
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : ANIMALS. 1 43 
 
 morial the upper part of those shells had been seen above the 
 stones and mud in the channel of the stream ; and when the 
 natives were feeding pigs for feasts, before giving the food to 
 the animals, they laid it upon these shells, in the belief that, 
 by doing so, virtue would proceed from the natmases to make 
 the pigs large and fat. When they were about to plant taro 
 they laid their niraks the sticks with which they dig the 
 ground on the shells, in the belief that, by doing so, they 
 would secure an excellent crop of taro. Every', undertaking 
 on the island was preceded by an act of homage to some 
 natmas. In their own way, the Aneityumese, like the 
 Athenians, were (dnaitiai{J<Mseregoi) "very religious," and 
 there, as in Athens, it was easier to find. a god than a man. 
 How those shells came to be in such a place, and how long 
 they had remained there no one knew. But time's destroying 
 fingers, by the agency of the elements and the help of accidents, 
 had left their impress on them both ; the edges were chipped, 
 and the enamel was corroded, and they had not that smooth 
 and white appearance which they must have had when the 
 animals were alive, and had not yet enjoyed the honours of an 
 apotheosis or rites divine ? 
 
 Aneityum, as is well known, is a fertile island ; if it were 
 fully and skilfully cultivated, it would soon be a little earthly 
 paradise, like the garden of Eden itself. Food of all varieties, 
 and to almost any amount, could easily be raised. But the 
 sea there is nearly as rich in its supplies of food as the land, 
 from the whale that tumbles about with his enormous bulk, 
 to the flying- fish that rise from the crest of the waves on 
 their finny wings, and skim along for fifty or a hundred yards, 
 and then sink into their native element. Many of the fish 
 in those seas are coarse and hard ; but some of them at least
 
 144 NATURAL HISTORY: THE TURTLE. 
 
 are soft, and very delicate eating, equal to trout, herring, or 
 salmon at home, or any of the fish mentioned in good old 
 Izaak Walton's "Angler," yea, as tender as anything to be 
 found either in the still waters of Lochfyne or in the rapid 
 currents of the Pentland Firth, each of which is so famous 
 for its matchless herrings. 
 
 THE TUETLE. 
 
 But the most highly prized denizen of the sea there is 
 the edible or green turtle (Chelonia midas). As we are on 
 the edge of the tropics, they are not so large as in lower 
 latitudes nearer the line, nor are they so plentiful ; neverthe- 
 less, they are sufficiently numerous to supply a fair amount 
 of sport in the catching of them, and sufficiently large to 
 supply a fair amount of food in the eating of them. They 
 are amphibious, although they live in the sea, and feed on a 
 kind of sea grass; but at the breeding season, the female 
 comes ashore, digs a deep hole in the sand above high- water 
 mark, and lays her eggs, to the number of one or two 
 hundred, covers them up, and, like the ostrich, leaves them 
 to be hatched by the heat of the sun. When the chicks 
 come out of the shell, they make direct for the sea, and are 
 never seen again till they return something like full-grown. 
 A friend of mine, an eminent naturalist, the late John 
 MacGillivray, Esq., F.R.S., told me that he was once en- 
 camped on a sandy beach on the northern coast of Australia ; 
 he was lying awake on his couch one night, and a fire was 
 burning before him. By and by he saw the sand being 
 upheaved near the fire, and then a tiny turtle, about the size 
 of a dollar, emerged from the earth, and waddled off direct
 
 NATURAL HISTORY: THE TURTLE. 145 
 
 for the sea, then another, and another, and another, and 
 finally a whole troop of them followed, and all made direct 
 for the ocean. His tent had been pitched on the top of a 
 turtle's nest, and probably the heat of the fire had has- 
 tened the departure of this orphan-like family, for whose 
 preservation and support God had otherwise made ample 
 provision. 
 
 The natives generally catch the turtles at night, but some- 
 times during the day. They have various modes of catching 
 them, but the most effectual is by means of nets furnished 
 with floats and sinks : the floats are not corks, however, but 
 cocoa-nuts, and the sinks are not leads but round stones. 
 When they catch the turtles, or entangle them, the first 
 thing to be done is to turn them over on their back ; they 
 are then quite helpless, as they cannot turn themselves over 
 again. The natives seldom catch more than one or two at 
 a time, but occasionally they are more successful. One morn- 
 ing in 1875, a little fleet of canoes went out with two large 
 nets, and secured no fewer than six, out of a small shoal of 
 turtles which they had descried. They went out at daybreak, 
 and in less than two hours the whole six were hauled ashore, 
 and were lying on their backs on the beach within two 
 hundred yards of my door, but all of them alive. I weighed 
 one of them and found it to be 324 Ibs. The six would 
 average 300 Ibs. each, or 1800 Ibs. in all. 
 
 Now only think of nearly a ton of genuine turtle ! What 
 an amount of pure, green fat must have been there ! that 
 transcendental delicacy, sacred to the festive boards of wor- 
 shipful aldermen 1 What oceans of soup, pure, unadulterated 
 and genuine, could have been manufactured from such a large 
 supply of the real material fresh from the ocean ! none of
 
 146 NATURAL HISTORY: THE TURTLE. 
 
 your mock turtle ; none even of those lean skinny animals, 
 closed in water-casks, and half starved on the passage from 
 the Island of Ascension or elsewhere to England, and more 
 dead than alive when they reach the Thames, and on which 
 all the skill of London cooks is exercised in preparing that 
 most admired and highly prized of all decoctions turtle-soup 
 on occasions such as when our friends the Lord Mayor, 
 such as Sir Andrew Lusk, M.P., or the late Sir William 
 McArthur, M.P., were wont to entertain their Majesty's 
 Ministers to dinner, and dispense with such dignified courtesy 
 the hospitalities of the Mansion House. Think again, more- 
 over, of all these six fine turtles being eaten by savages and 
 missionaries ! The natives very generally, if they catch but 
 one, give the mission family the head, which is the choicest 
 portion. In the days of heathenism it was given to the chief, 
 but now he foregoes his claim in favour of the missionary, but 
 the missionary on his part recognises the obligation, and 
 when he kills a pig he sends a roast of it to the chief, re- 
 membering the proverb about giff-gaff. On this occasion they 
 brought us the finest head of the six. Brother and sister 
 Murray and their little boy from Anelgauhat happened to 
 be with us on a visit. But only fancy two mission families 
 taking a holiday and luxuriously dining on a delicacy that 
 would not only have graced a civic banquet, but would have 
 been prized on the table of royalty itself. 
 
 This, I am aware, is a hazardous revelation to make, for 
 the sake of our poor missionaries; pity for them is almost 
 certain to be changed into envy, everybody's teeth will be set 
 a watering, tears of sympathy for them will cease to be shed, 
 and missionary contributions may perhaps dwindle down to
 
 NATURAL HISTORY : THE TURTLE. 147 
 
 driblets. " What ! " they will say, " show pity, compassion, 
 sympathy, for whom ? for people living better than aldermen, 
 and dining on green turtle ! Verily that man told us the 
 truth who said, that some of those missionaries get into a 
 very good way of doing."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COOKING EATING DRINKING KAVA. 
 
 THE principal mode of cooking on Aneityum and in the New 
 Hebrides, as it was in New Zealand, and in the South Seas 
 generally, was the native oven. On Aneityum, and in the 
 southern islands of the group, they had no means of boiling 
 anything ; they had no vessels that could stand the fire. The 
 process of cooking was this : In the first place a round pit 
 was dug, from nine inches to two feet deep, according to the 
 Avidth ; and from eighteen inches to three or four feet in 
 diameter. If it was a permanent oven, it was paved in the 
 bottom. Every family had a collection of fire stones, that 
 could be made red-hot without breaking; these stones were 
 from the size of a hen's egg to that of one's fist. The next 
 thing to be done was to collect a quantity of dry, generally 
 soft, wood, mostly branches of trees ; if it was a large oven, 
 larger pieces were used. I shall describe a Saturday's oven, 
 being generally one of their largest, and also one of their best. 
 Often two or three families united to make one oven. In the 
 morning the men went away to the plantation for taro, or to 
 the woods for bread-fruit, or horse chestnuts a much larger 
 and better fruit than ours that goes by that name ; another 
 would go for a bunch of bananas, &c. If some fish happened 
 to be caught, they would be forthcoming ; or if a pig had been 
 killed in the district, a leg or a shoulder of it would also be
 
 COOKING EATING. 149 
 
 there. They never salt their pork ; but when a pig is killed 
 it is at once divided among friends, and then cooked by them, 
 but to be repaid at some future time, which is never forgotten. 
 Some ripe cocoa-nuts are also stripped of the husk, the kernels 
 grated down into a small wooden trough. This they strain 
 through a cloth ; in former times through a piece of native 
 cloth that grows round the butt-end of the cocoa-nut branches ; 
 it is not unlike cheese-cloth in texture. The juice thus 
 strained out is the true cocoa-nut milk, which can be used for 
 coffee. With this milk they mix taro, or yams, or bananas, 
 or occasionally arrowroot, from which to make puddings. 
 This milk serves the purpose of lard, or suet, or butter. These 
 puddings are wrapped up in banana leaves, which have been 
 heated over the fire, and tied firmly by the neck with some 
 cord-like fibre, made from the inner bark of some bush. 
 While the men are away for wood, the women are away for 
 leaves in which to wrap up the food. The taro or yams are 
 carefully scraped, and, when washed quite clean, are wrapped 
 up in banana, or other wholesome leaves ; the fish, or pork, or 
 fruit, as well as the puddings, are the same. The natives 
 have a plant which they call nasieij, a small bush, the leaves 
 of which grow in little clusters, which, when baked, or 
 steamed, along with meat or fish, are uncommonly tender and 
 palatable, more so than cabbage, kail, savoys, broccoli, cauli- 
 flower, brussels sprouts, or any of that family. They generally 
 plant it among their bananas, and near their cottages. They 
 usually wrap it up along with pork, or fowl, or fish, to absorb 
 the juice. The dry wood is put into the pit, and then heaped 
 up as high as it will lie ; the stones are placed on the wood, 
 fire is applied to it, and it is soon all ablaze. It continues to 
 burn till all the wood is a mass of glowing embers, and the
 
 150 COOKING EATING. 
 
 stones are red hot. When burned out the whole falls to the 
 bottom. The stones are all taken quickly out by means of 
 sticks, or by a pair of native tongs, made of a long stick split 
 up at the one end. The embers are spread out over the 
 bottom of the pit; these are covered with a layer of leaves, 
 and the food taro, yams, bread-fruit, chestnuts, pork, fish, &c., 
 all previously wrapped up, is placed in a row on these leaves, 
 and red stones scattered over the top ; a second row of leaves, 
 and a second row of food, and a second covering of hot stones 
 follow, and if it is a large oven a third row will be laid on, a 
 quantity of old dried leaves is then added, and the whole is 
 covered with earth to the thickness of six inches or so. The 
 oven is now completed, and the process of steaming begins. 
 It is left for two or three hours, longer or shorter, according 
 to circumstances. If, for example, it is a turtle that they are 
 cooking, they will not open it till the morning. Meanwhile, 
 between sweat and smoke, stones, leaves, and earth, they are 
 completely begrimed and dirty ; and they are all off to the 
 stream to bathe, the men to one pool and the women to 
 another, and thus make themselves clean and comfortable for 
 the Sabbath. At the same time some of the young men are 
 sent off to pull a quantity of fresh or green cocoa-nuts for the 
 Lord's day. They select the younger and lower trees, as being 
 the most easily climbed, and as having also the best nuts for 
 drinking. It is astonishing to see how easily they can climb 
 the trees ; their toes are nearly as nimble in climbing as their 
 fingers. Most of the trees lean slightly to the one side, and, 
 as a matter of course, they take the nearest side, and they 
 often seem just to walk up the tree on all fours. John 
 Williams says that when the natives on Tahiti or elsewhere 
 saw English seamen try to climb cocoa-nut trees, they laughed
 
 COOKING EATING. I 5 I 
 
 at them for their awkwardness, and when they wished to 
 disparage one another, they would say, " Why, you are as stupid 
 as an Englishman ! " The fruit is all hanging in clusters 
 among the branches. The natives knap the husk with the 
 nail of one of their fingers, and thereby ascertain the nuts that 
 are just sufficiently ripe for being drunk ; these they twist off 
 and throw down to the ground. They then fixed a sharp-pointed 
 stick in the earth, and by striking the rind of the nut against 
 the point they tore off the husk, and the nuts were ready to be 
 opened for drinking. The nuts, thus stripped of their husk, 
 were thrown into a basket, and put away for the Sabbath. 
 When the oven was considered fully cooked, and generally 
 they guessed very correctly, the earth was removed and 
 the oven opened, and taro, yams, fish, pork, &c., came out 
 piping hot, nicely cooked, and as tempting as if they had 
 been taken out of the best cooked baker's oven in our 
 land. The food was then distributed in the following 
 manner. The party sat in a circle, each with his food basket 
 beside him. The person or persons dividing the food went 
 round, and gave to each a taro or two; they went round a 
 second time and gave each a yam, then a fish, or a piece of 
 pork, or a piece of a fowl, a cocoa-nut, or a piece of sugar- 
 cane, till everything was divided. A blessing was then asked, 
 and they ate their supper, as much as they wished. After 
 this every one gathered up all that he had left, and put it 
 into his basket for the Sabbath day; and there was always 
 as much left as would serve them comfortably till the Monday 
 evening. In cold weather they often sliced down their taro 
 on the Sabbath, and warmed it in the frying-pan. On Efate, 
 where the staple food is yams, they often, on the Sabbath 
 afternoon, either roasted small yams, or made an oven, the
 
 I 5 2 COOKING EATING. 
 
 wood and other requisites being provided on the Saturday, 
 because it was believed that the cold watery yams had a 
 tendency to produce bowel complaints ; and the missionaries 
 never thought of enjoining anything that was found to be 
 incompatible with health. The cooking in the native oven 
 is a slow and laborious process, and must evidently in time 
 give way to pots, saucepans, kettles, frying-pans, and American 
 or other stoves, but it cooks food remarkably well ; we liked 
 our taro better when it was cooked in the native oven than 
 when done in any other way. To those holding the principles 
 of the Sunday Society, a missionary Sabbath will no doubt be 
 the reverse of attractive ; but to the natives, who regularly 
 worked 365 days every year, who, in anticipation of some 
 great heathen feast, when the sacred men had made every 
 kind of common food tapu, had fasted or fared very very 
 scantily not only for days but for weeks, and even for 
 months, till the bones of their back and shoulders were far 
 more prominent than the muscles to people who had passed 
 through this experience, it was no difficult matter to make 
 them believe that 52 days' rest in the year, the first day in 
 every seven, with three plentiful, well-cooked meals on each 
 one of those days, was anything but a repulsive mode of life, 
 even though accompanied by public and private religious 
 exercises two sermons and a Sabbath-school, and family 
 prayers morning, noon, and night. But very likely the time 
 may come when those who had never known the wars of 
 Canaan, who had been ignorant of the bondage of Egypt, 
 the brick kiln, and the iron furnace, will look upon the manna 
 as light food, will prefer an aesthetic to a spiritual religion, 
 will say of the Lord's service, " What a weariness is it ! " 
 " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn 1
 
 KAVA AND KAVA DEINKING. 153 
 
 and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat ? " When a 
 feeble piety will be followed by a low morality, when they 
 shall make the ephah small and the shekel great, give small 
 measure, and charge a high price, and falsify the balances 
 by deceit. When they shall shun self-denial and seek after 
 self-indulgence; when they shall plead for doubtful amuse- 
 ments, and practise the pleasant vices, till they shall be 
 drinking with the sons of Belial, and dancing with the 
 daughters of Midian. Should such things happen again, 
 as they have happened before, and have happened elsewhere, 
 no trial will have happened but what is common to man, and 
 common to missions ; but to every temptation, and to every 
 trial, God will provide a way of escape, that His servants may 
 be able to bear it. He will watch over His own work, while 
 His Word shall endure for ever. 
 
 KAVA AND KAVA- DRINKING. 
 
 The kava plant is found, I believe, in all the South Sea 
 Islands, within the tropics as far west as the Solomon group, 
 and is converted into an intoxicating beverage. From the 
 Solomon group westward the betel-root, the chewing of which 
 renders the teeth of the natives quite black, grows plentifully 
 and is commonly used as a narcotic. The root of the kava 
 plant, and the extreme base of the stem, are the parts from 
 which the drink is prepared. These being washed and dried 
 are chewed ; in some groups this operation is performed by 
 young men, in other groups it is done by young women, 
 good clean teeth being the qualification for this office. When 
 the root is sufficiently chewed, the masticated fibres, in the 
 form of round, dry balls, are deposited in a common bowl;
 
 154 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. 
 
 these are then diluted with water, and strained through a 
 piece of native cloth, or through fern leaves. When the 
 beverage is ready, the priest, or any head man, pronounces 
 a toast or prayer over it, after which the first cup the cup 
 is made from the lower half of a cocoa-nut shell is handed 
 to the person of highest rank in the company. It is not 
 given to women or to the common people; it is kept ex- 
 clusively for chiefs and principal men. This description 
 applies to all heathen islands, and to Aneityum in its heathen 
 state. It is no longer drunk on Aneityum. It has long 
 been prohibited. To prevent the injurious consequences that 
 flowed from its use, the natives, once and again, rooted the 
 kava all out, not by^the instigation of the missionaries, but 
 by an edict of the chiefs, supreme and subordinate; but of 
 course the roots were not so completely eradicated, but that 
 in time they again sprouted, and the plants grew up anew. 
 The drinking of kava, therefore, on Aneityum is not now 
 carried on with that dignity and eclat with which it was 
 done in former times ; kava is now a sort of smuggled article, 
 and is obtained and drunk very much in the same way as 
 alcoholic liquors are obtained and drunk in the state of Maine, 
 and in the other prohibitory states in America. When the 
 Rev. James Cosh, now of Balmain, Sydney, was our missionary 
 on Efate, he found that the leading men in the village met 
 every evening, after the toils of the day, to drink kava ; and 
 though at first he thought the practice was harmless, there 
 being no bad language, no quarrelling, and no fighting all 
 was good feeling and innocent hilarity, but erelong he found 
 that, when they left the banqueting-house and went to their 
 own homes, they were all so dead and stupid that scarcely 
 one of them was able to conduct family worship. They were
 
 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. I 5 5 
 
 no longer Christians, they were in reality, on this point, all 
 back again to heathenism. Mr. Cosh took them and talked 
 seriously to them, and, by a powerful exhibition of moral 
 suasion, he led them to abstain from the stupefying liquor, 
 so that they could conduct their evening as well as their 
 morning devotions with clear and unclouded intellect. 
 
 Speaking of kava, Dr. Seeman, in his able work on Fiji, 
 says, " The beverage has the look of coffee with plenty of 
 milk in it, and an aromatic, slightly pungent taste, which, 
 when once acquired, must, like all acquired tastes, be perfectly 
 irresistible. It tastes like soapsuds, jalap, and magnesia. 
 Drunk in moderation it has probably no bad effect, and acts 
 upon the system something like betel-nut, but taken to excess 
 it generates all kinds of skin diseases, and weakens the 
 eyesight. Fortunately, kava, unlike distilled spirits, does 
 not make people quarrelsome ; it has rather, like tobacco, 
 a calming effect, and when Fijians extol the virtues of their 
 national beverage, they often and justly make this observation. 
 Nearly all the lower class of whites in Fiji are kava drinkers, 
 some regular drunkards. And what has always surprised me 
 is that, considering the Fijian to be a tropical climate, most 
 of these drunkards enjoy such a long life." 
 
 It is not true, however, that these men as a general rule 
 enjoy long life. I know on reliable authority that through- 
 out the South Seas the class referred to in general do " not 
 live out half their days : " few of them live past the age of 
 forty. Where this is the exception it is easily accounted for. 
 They are generally men of vigorous constitutions, and they 
 live, not in consequence of drinking, but in spite of it. In 
 most cases, this drinking especially of alcohol, though ex- 
 cessive, is only occasional, not habitual; it is not daily
 
 I 5 6 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. 
 
 tippling, but '[occasional outbursts of violent drunkenness. 
 For months at a time they are, from necessity, abstainers at 
 least from spirits. Many of those captains, engaged in what 
 is called the Island trade, sail their vessels on teetotal 
 principles ; they adopt it from necessity, as the only means 
 of safely prosecuting this business with the class of men they 
 have generally to do with. The men are paid at the end of 
 the voyage, or once in six months, as the case may be ; the 
 liquor store is then opened, and drink is then sold to them 
 till every portion of their wages is expended, and abstinence 
 is reluctantly forced upon them, a new outfit must be pro- 
 vided on credit, and they must undertake another voyage of 
 the same kind to redeem themselves from their debts. " The 
 poor Indian," says Dr. Beecher, "who, once a month, drinks 
 himself dead to all but simple breathing, will outlive for years 
 the man who drinks daily, though he drinks moderately." 
 In the one case, it is constant war against nature; in the 
 other case, the system is allowed to throw off the injurious 
 effects of these debauches, and recruit for a while its impaired 
 energies. Those men, too, are almost constantly working or 
 living in the open air, and in other circumstances favourable 
 to longevity. 
 
 Some twenty years ago or so it was reported, although I 
 cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report, that one of the 
 first British governors of Fiji was in the habit, occasionally 
 at least, of leaving Government house of an evening, and 
 stepping across to the kava-drinking hall of the chiefs, and, 
 in order to ingratiate himself with the native aristocracy, 
 joined them in quaffing off a cup of the soothing, saponaceous 
 mixture, prepared for the company by the chief butler of 
 Fiji.
 
 KAVA AND KAVA CHINKING. 157 
 
 A rather formidable objection against^ Nephalism is pre- 
 sented to some minds by the supposed fact that stimulants 
 or narcotics are in use among all nations: wine, beer, ardent 
 spirits, kava, opium, tobacco, &c. and hence they infer that 
 the desire for stimulants and sedatives is a natural appetite, 
 universal as the species, and is to be regulated, but not ex- 
 tinguished, and that, in this light, total abstainers, with the 
 best of aims, are nevertheless fighting, as it were, against God 
 and nature. There is a certain amount of plausibility about 
 this objection. Nothing is more certain than this, that every 
 attempt to benefit mankind in a way contrary to the estab- 
 lished order of God's providence must end in disappointment. 
 But it has always appeared to me that a fallacy lurks in this 
 objection. It assumes what requires to be proved. No one 
 will deny that the taste for stimulants and sedatives is easily 
 acquired, and when acquired is far stronger than our natural 
 appetites; but it is equally certain that these desires sleep 
 till they are awakened or created. The objection assumes 
 that these tastes or desires are always awake or alive. This 
 requires to be proved, which it never has been. . They cause 
 no uneasiness till acquired. Let the drink be prohibited, and 
 the customs be abolished that awaken those appetites, and 
 misery only, not happiness, will be removed. If the prin- 
 ciple of this objection proves anything, it proves the universal 
 depravity of man, but nothing more ; his disposition to abuse 
 the bounties of providence, and by converting medicines into 
 luxuries, to seek higher and more exquisite enjoyments than 
 is compatible with sound and permanent health, and the laws 
 of our earthly existence. Man is prone to pervert every one 
 of God's blessings. In consequence of this perversion the 
 greatest good has always become the greatest evil; religion
 
 158 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. 
 
 is perverted into superstition ; civil government into tyranny ; 
 means of self-defence into weapons of unjust and aggressive 
 warfare; the strong social feelings into the "social evil;" 
 and the most valuable medicines into the most destructive 
 luxuries. The love of stimulants, the desire for pleasurable 
 excitement must be regulated, like every other desire, by 
 higher considerations than mere temporary gratification. 
 Scientific knowledge, and higher Christian principle, will lead 
 men to deny themselves a present enjoyment, for the sake 
 of averting a future evil, and securing a higher future advan- 
 tage, and will urge them to endeavour, both by example and 
 persuasion, that their less enlightened brethren may follow 
 the same course. We wish to bring back those stimulants 
 and sedatives from the category of pleasant but perilous 
 luxuries, and confine them again to the list of valuable and 
 powerful medicines. 
 
 " The medicinal value of the kava plant," says Seeman, 
 " has of late claimed some attention. In the French trans- 
 lation of Golding Bird's work on calculous affections, Dr. 
 O'Rorke has inserted among others the following remarks : 
 ' The kava plant is the most powerful sudorific in existence, 
 and its stimulant qualities render it applicable in those cases 
 where colchicum is prescribed. The intoxication it produces 
 is not like that caused by spirituous liquors, but it rather 
 induces a placid tranquillity, accompanied by incoherent 
 dreams. Kava is as powerful in its therapeutic action as 
 lignum vitse, or guiacum, sarsaparilla, &c., and the islanders 
 use it as a specific against the diseases brought over to them 
 by foreign vessels. On the other hand, this drug, used to 
 excess as an intoxicating agent, over-excites the skin by its 
 sudorific effects, and eventually even causes elephantiasis.' "
 
 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. 159 
 
 Throughout those groups the most common forms of disease 
 are fever and ague, as in the New Hebrides, and diarrhoea 
 and dysentery as in Fiji. It is well known that these 
 diseases are most frequently caused by some checking of the 
 insensible perspiration ; and consequently those medicines 
 that act promptly and powerfully on the skin are of the 
 highest value in such maladies. Here we see a benevolent 
 Providence beforehand with man ; side by side with the bane 
 rises up the antidote. The poor ignorant savages have not 
 discovered this. They found in the kava a fascinating luxury, 
 with present enjoyment, and only a remote penalty ; but of 
 its medicinal properties their knowledge was limited in the 
 extreme. Hence, by using a powerful medicine as a daily 
 luxury, the blessing was perverted more or less into a curse. 
 God has here provided the materials, it rests with scientific 
 skill and Christian principle to rectify the evils and secure 
 the advantages. In New Zealand, where neither ague nor 
 dysentery prevail, the kava, the piper methysticum, is not 
 found ; there is a piper there, it is true, but it is the piper 
 excelsum, and is not used for making kava; and hence the 
 New Zealanders never had this liquor ; so far as I am aware, 
 they had no intoxicating drink till they were supplied with 
 it by foreigners. It is not true, therefore, that the use of 
 stimulants is universal, as our objectors allege ; here was a 
 whole people without them ; and even in the kava-drinking 
 groups, not a tithe of the people partook of the indulgence. 
 Its use was confined almost exclusively to the chiefs, the same 
 class who contracted a morbid craving for human flesh, which 
 in many cases became as irresistible as the longing for kava. 
 But in both cases, those who abstained were the happy, those 
 who indulged were finally the sufferers.
 
 160 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. 
 
 I am not aware that any of our missionaries, or any of the 
 white residents on those islands, have used kava medicinally ; 
 but assuming the above opinions respecting its medicinal 
 properties to be correct, it might be worth while to try it in 
 this way. Quinine has hitherto been the great sheet-anchor 
 in fever and ague, and diaphoretics in dysentery; but if 
 kava were found effectual in that formidable disease, ague, or 
 in that still more fatal malady, dysentery, it would be an 
 important addition to the pharmacopoeia for the South Seas. 
 But whatever uncertainty may remain for some time as to 
 its therapeutic value, it is clear as day that its use as a 
 luxury mild and gentle as its effects may seem to be is 
 highly perilous to health; a headache next morning is its 
 first admonition. Those gentlemen who complacently drink 
 their wine, or sip their toddy, aiming at exemplary modera- 
 tion as the acme of a model life in the use of stimulants, and 
 who think that in this way they are obeying God and follow- 
 ing nature, copying, at a safe distance, the example set by 
 saints, sages, and savages Noah and Lot, Belshazzar and 
 Alexander, Pomare and Thakombau Jet them for their com- 
 fort and encouragement pass an evening in imagination in 
 the public hall of some town or district in Fiji or in the New 
 Hebrides, and while they see these cheerful kava-quaffing 
 Bacchanals entering their elysiuin on the confines of Dream- 
 land, let them look up to those rafters where the skulls of 
 enemies are suspended as trophies ; and, dancing among these, 
 or glaring through those empty sockets, they may see gnomes, 
 and goblins, and spectres, the personifications of such diseased 
 as lepra, ophthalmia, and elephantiasis, eyeing with compla- 
 cency the joyous group beneath, and deliberately choosing 
 this, that, or the other, as their future victims. Let them
 
 KAVA AND KAVA DRINKING. l6l 
 
 return when years have passed away, and, instead of that 
 noble savage, with eagle eye, and agile step, and prince-like 
 bearing, they will see a feeble man, prematurely old, with 
 eyes inflamed, skin diseased, and legs thick and rugose as 
 that of an elephant. Let them then gaze on the wine spark- 
 ling before them, and perhaps the utterances of the ancient 
 oracle may be clearer to their apprehension, as it sounds 
 forth these words, " Look not thou upon the wine when it is 
 red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth 
 itself aright ; at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth 
 like an adder."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 OF the two ordinances that survived the fall and were taken 
 out of Eden, namely, the Sabbath and Marriage, the former 
 was utterly unknown on Aneityum, and the latter, though 
 distinctly recognised, was but a feeble institution. The 
 strangulation of every wife on the death of her husband, and 
 the frequency with which female infants were killed, had 
 reduced the female population of the island to 65 per cent, of 
 the male, as we found to be the case when we were able first 
 to take a census of the population. Only sixty-five females 
 for every hundred males was a very gloomy outlook ; but we 
 did our best to save female life and promote suitable marriages. 
 In heathenism every girl was betrothed, often as soon as she 
 was born. The parents, or the relatives, or the chief, as one 
 or other happened to be the most powerful, had the full 
 disposal of the girl ; she was allowed no say in the matter at 
 all. There was no such thing as Narayin Sheshadri would 
 have called good honest courtship. Marriages were generally 
 celebrated when the girl was about sixteen or seventeen years 
 of age. The husband was generally much older than the wife. 
 As a general rule she lived quietly with him, through fear, 
 for five or six years, till she reached the full vigour of woman- 
 hood, when she showed that she had a will and a power of her 
 own. She then began to cast her eyes on some vigorous
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 163 
 
 young man of her own age, of that class who could more than 
 hold his own with her husband, or one who, with the help of 
 his friends, could more than hold his own with her husband 
 and his friends ; they then eloped ; a quarrel and sometimes 
 a war ensued, if peace was not secured by a large present 
 being given to the injured husband and his friends. After a 
 year or two, longer or shorter as the case might be, the 
 woman would quarrel with her new husband or he with her, 
 and she would leave him and become the wife of a third 
 husband. This was not an exceptional case ; it was the 
 normal state of society. When we came to know the people, 
 we found, in the district where we lived, that among the 
 thirty or forty families nearest to us, there was scarcely a 
 woman who had reached middle life, to whom it might not 
 have been said, as our Saviour said to the woman of Samaria, 
 " Thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is 
 not thy husband." I knew one or two women who had had 
 as many as ten husbands. There was a good deal of formality 
 and feasting about the first marriage of a young woman, 
 especially if she were a chief's daughter, subsequent marriages 
 were informal enough. I may give one example. Shortly 
 before our arrival on the island, Jane, the daughter of Tavita, 
 the chief of our district, was affianced to Williamu, a sketch 
 of whom I have given elsewhere. Williamu did not wish her, 
 but the father was determined that the marriage should take 
 place, and so preparations were pushed on. At the court of 
 Ahasuerus, when Esther became one of the brides-elect, she 
 was kept twelve months in the house of the women under 
 Hegai before her marriage. Comparing small things with 
 great, a similar practice existed on Aneityum, and Jane, 
 Williamu's bride-elect, was, according to native custom, shut
 
 1 64 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 up in a house adjoining her father's, preparatory to her 
 marriage, and an old trustworthy woman was appointed as 
 nurse or guardian, to supply her with food, and guarantee her 
 seclusion. At that time there was living with Williamu one 
 Manura, a native of Tahiti, a Christian ; one day Manura, no 
 doubt with Williamu's approval, went and broke open the 
 house in which Jane was shut up, brought her out, and set 
 her at liberty, saying that he would not allow her or any 
 young woman to be shut up like a pig that was being fed for 
 a feast ; and thus ended the purposed marriage, and the 
 example of Esther was never again repeated. Had any native 
 of Aneityum done what the Tahitian did his temerity would 
 have cost him his life ; but Manura was a Malay, a descendant 
 of Shem, and Tavita was only a Papuan, a descendant of Ham, 
 and was quite willing to submit; for of Shem it was said, 
 "And Canaan shall be his servant." 
 
 Our mode of proceeding in connection with marriage was 
 this. We remarried nobody; we recognised all native mar- 
 riages as valid. When natives gave up heathenism and 
 placed themselves under Christian instruction, we recognised 
 as husbands and wives all who professed themselves to be 
 such, and were recognised as such by the general public, 
 and I enrolled them as married in my catalogue. In New 
 Zealand the Church of England missionaries married none 
 who were not baptized. They allowed them to live together, 
 but they would not marry them. On the other hand, they 
 remarried all couples whom they baptized, although they had 
 been recognised as husband and wife for many years. This 
 always appeared to me as an unscriptural mode of proceeding, 
 and I have never seen anything in the standards of the 
 Church of England that seemed to require it ; but there may
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 165 
 
 be some connection between Baptism and " Holy Matrimony" 
 of which I am ignorant. 
 
 When an application was made for marriage, the parties 
 were proclaimed on the Sabbath, and the marriage was 
 solemnised in the church at the weekly prayer meeting on the 
 Wednesday following. In our circumstances we considered 
 one proclamation quite sufficient to secure all needed publicity. 
 At the commencement of the prayer meeting the parties to be 
 married sat down side by side on a clean new mat in front 
 of the pulpit platform. When the marriage was about to be 
 performed they rose up. In every country certain phrases 
 come into use that were never intended to become current in 
 that sense. In England the proclamation of the banns is 
 called the asking; in Scotland it is called the crying; they 
 were cried on such and such a day ; on Aneityum the mar- 
 riage is called the rising, because the parties rise when the 
 marriage is celebrated. Erau atithai arau, the two are rising. 
 We recognised about 700 native marriages, and on my side 
 of the island, between Mr. Copeland and myself, there were 
 enrolled up to the time I left the island 475 Christian 
 marriages ; and on Dr. Geddie's side of the island about the 
 same number. God signally owned His own ordinance. Out 
 of these 950 marriages, or thereabouts, during the twenty- 
 five years that I was on the island, there was only one or two 
 cases of final separation. As might have been supposed, 
 there were many cases of conjugal infidelity, but far fewer 
 than could have been reasonably expected ; and I feel certain 
 that nothing but the Word and Spirit of God could have 
 wrought such a revolution in the moral condition of a com- 
 munity of the lowest savages, all steeped to the very lips in 
 the foulest abominations of heathenism. We had no legal
 
 1 66 COUETSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 or civil securities to guarantee the safety of the marriage 
 contract. Public opinion and the fear of God were all that 
 we had to rely upon. We had to trust to moral influences 
 alone. The marriages were nearly all celebrated at our 
 central stations, and at the prayer meetings on the Wednes- 
 day, when one-half and often two-thirds of our ordinary 
 congregations were present ; for in addition to the ordinary 
 worshippers, there were generally present a large bridal 
 party, so that the sacredness of the place, and the publicity 
 of the occasion, the fear of God and the regard for man, 
 rendered the moral influences as strong as they could be 
 made, and they largely supplied the lack of legal obligations. 
 After the service was over I shook hands with the newly 
 married pair and wished them much happiness, my wife 
 followed and did the same. Then came their friends, and 
 subsequently the bulk of the congregation. But all our 
 married friends, whether united by native or Christian rites, 
 required to be very carefully looked after. I kept a list of 
 every man, woman, and child on my side of the island, and 
 Mr. Geddie did the same. This I corrected annually, and 
 if I heard of any family quarrel, or of any doubtful conduct 
 in either husband or wife, I sent two or three of the wisest 
 of our elders, or teachers, or chiefs, if practicable, friends 
 of the accused or suspected, to visit them, to take them by 
 themselves, and inquire into the reports, to talk quietly to 
 them, and give them such advice as they might think need- 
 ful. My wife was generally the first, through the women, 
 to learn when anything was going wrong. She heard this, 
 not as a piece of gossip, for she put her foot firmly down 
 to stop all mere gossip ; but the teachers' wives, and other 
 trustworthy women, supplied her with the necessary informa-
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 167 
 
 tion, which she communicated to me. And then the session 
 and I took counsel together as to what should be done, and 
 the result of our measures was generally successful. And 
 by promoting the peace of families, we promoted largely the 
 peace of the island. 
 
 The clothing of the bride and bridegroom was at first a 
 matter for serious consideration. Every professed Christian 
 wore some portion of European clothing, especially at church. 
 And if clothing was deemed indispensable for ordinary worship, 
 it seemed still more necessary for a marriage. And our 
 Samoan teachers fostered the idea, and lent portions of their 
 own clothing to bedeck the bride and the bridegroom ; my 
 wife, too, always made a small bridal present. There was 
 always a small marriage feast provided by the friends. After 
 the manner of the Scotch, there was no marriage fee, but a 
 present from the feast was brought to the missionary, con- 
 sisting of a basket or two of taro, a fowl or two, and some- 
 times a pig. This implied a small present of clothing in 
 return. As time wore on clothing and other property became 
 more plentiful on the islands, marriage presents on both sides 
 became larger; marriage dresses became more stylish, and 
 civilization kept pace with Christianity, and we began to be 
 afraid lest there, as elsewhere, the secular might overlay the 
 spiritual. In heathen times there was little or no family life 
 on Aneityum the men of a district slept all in one common 
 house, and all the women in another. When we began to 
 celebrate Christian marriages, we strove hard to get every 
 new married couple to have a house of their own, and, if 
 possible, to get the house prepared and all ready before the 
 marriage, and this arrangement wrought well; although the 
 bridegroom was often eager to leave the preparing of the
 
 1 68 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 house till after the marriage, but I was always strong for him 
 to have the house before the wife ; and by speaking to the 
 friends beforehand to help the young man I generally 
 succeeded ; and in this way every marriage not only added a 
 new family to the community, but also a new house to* the 
 settlement ; and the young wife realised the truth of what 
 was said by the Scotchwoman, " It's aye a nice thing to hae a 
 bit house o' yin's ain." 
 
 We never interfered in match-making, though often urged 
 to do so. We did what we could by advice to prevent un- 
 suitable matches; but we forced nothing. We left the 
 responsibility always with the parties interested. The notions 
 of the natives on this subject were often very absurd. The 
 bride and bridegroom behooved to belong to the same or 
 contiguous districts ; and as women were scarce, if one was 
 married into any particular tribe, another woman, sooner or 
 later, must be married back out of that tribe in return. All 
 old heathen ideas on that subject were tenacious of life, they 
 died hard. My truthfulness, on one occasion, was severely 
 and unexpectedly tried. In meeting an objection that the 
 bride was taken too far away from her people, some eight or 
 ten miles, I said that before I was married, my wife and I 
 lived as far from one another as between Aneityum and 
 Eromanga. When Williamu accompanied us to this country 
 in 1860, he first saw Mrs. Inglis' native place, and then he 
 saw mine; and he told me afterwards that he remembered 
 what I had said about how far we had lived from one another 
 before we were married ; and now he saw that what I had said 
 was quite true. How important it is at all times to speak 
 the exact truth. Who could have imagined that my casual 
 utterances were to be thus tested. If they had been found to
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 169 
 
 be incorrect, Williamu's confidence in me would have been 
 rudely shaken. 
 
 One day the chiefs came to me to proclaim a marriage. As 
 I have said, we took nothing to do with match-making, 
 though often importuned to espouse the interest of some 
 party, but I tried to improve all such opportunities to explain 
 to the people the Scriptural principles on which marriages 
 ought to be contracted, and to point out to them the evils of 
 ill-assorted marriages, leaving them to carry out these principles 
 themselves, and throwing all the responsibilities on the parties 
 promoting the marriage. In this case I was calling their 
 attention to the fact that the man was much older than the 
 woman, and had been anything but an exemplary man in his 
 general conduct, and that I was afraid she might not like him, 
 but was simply yielding to a strong pressure brought to bear 
 upon her by her friends, for there, as elsewhere, the course of 
 true love seldom runs smooth. The bride proposed was a 
 particularly interesting young woman. I had known her 
 from a child ; she had attended all my classes ; she was an 
 excellent scholar, good-looking, and well conducted, and was, 
 at the time, a candidate for church membership ; and I felt 
 that she deserved one of the best young men on the island. 
 As for the proposed bridegroom, poor fellow, I had a good deal 
 of sympathy for him ; he was a man of great force of character, 
 impulsive, often unselfish, and one of those generous natures 
 whom people generally like. He had been ill-used about three 
 years before ; he wished to marry a widow, and she wished to 
 marry him ; but strong family influences were brought to bear 
 on the widow, and she had to give him up and take his rival. 
 But, there, as much as in more civilised lands, public sympathy 
 comes out at length on behalf of right and justice, and in
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 behalf of the injured ; and public feeling was all on the man's 
 side in this case. One chief said to me, " Misi, I have a 
 parable I sometimes speak If I had a big wild pig that was 
 going about and breaking into plantations, eating people's food, 
 and doing all sorts of mischief, the people would say, Let 
 this pig be killed ; we cannot get living for it ; but I would 
 say, No, spare my pig, and help me to make an enclosure for 
 him. We set to, we make the enclosure, we put in the pig, 
 and feed him, and he becomes a quiet, tame pig. Now, there 
 was Raton ga. The people said, O don't give him a wife ; see 
 what a wild young man he is ; he hears nobody's words, 
 neither the chiefs, nor the teachers. But I stood up for him. 
 I spoke my parable. He was married. I talked to him ; he 
 has been a well-conducted man ever since ; he has two children, 
 and is now a member of the church." I said, "Yes, that is 
 all true, but Ratonga and his wife were both one age. What 
 about Lenia and her? " This was a young man belonging to 
 the same district, and also a candidate for church membership. 
 " yes," they said, " he is a very good young man, but all 
 the people of her land are against him getting her." "But 
 what about Kula ? " I said, naming another young man, " the 
 people said she wanted him." "0 yes," they said, "that was 
 some time ago ; but when they spoke to him he said, No, 
 she was a distant relation of his own, and he would not have 
 her." "Yes," said another, "and when she went up to 
 Ivanipek to stay with the teacher, the chief there wished her 
 for his son Ketipup (also a likely young man), but when she 
 heard this she was unwilling, and came off home immediately. 
 They have talked about this marriage between her and In jap 
 a great deal, and she thinks of nobody else now." "Yes," 
 said the chief who had spoken the parable, " I spoke to her
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. I/I 
 
 last Monday, and she said the words about In jap and her were 
 to stand." I said to them, "Well, you go home and search 
 her heart honestly, and see if these words be true, and not 
 said through fear of her friends, and come to me before church 
 time on Sabbath morning, and, if it is .good for her, I will 
 proclaim them ; " and so ended their interview. On the Sabbath 
 morning the elder came back and said that he had searched 
 the young woman's heart, and that she had said that their 
 words were good for her ; because that if Ketipup, the chief's 
 son, and she were married, as they were both young and 
 thoughtless, they would live in idleness, and have no food, and 
 then they would be quarrelling and fighting, and living an 
 unhappy life ; but if In jap and she were married, he would be 
 thoughtful, and strong to work, and she would work with him, 
 and they would have plenty of food and live happily together. 
 Whether these were actually her own sentiments, or whether 
 they were the words suggested to her, by a kind of process 
 akin to the leading of evidence, and to which she merely gave 
 her assent, I was not able to say, but I was shut up to 
 proclaim them ; and they were married on the following 
 Wednesday. But with all the drawbacks to marriage in such 
 a state of society as we found there, it was an unspeakable 
 blessing to the Aneityumese. 
 
 The question of bigamy and polygamy came up for solution 
 in our mission, as in most heathen missions; a question of 
 casuistry more difficult perhaps than any found in Pike and 
 Hayward's Cases of Conscience, and which has exercised the 
 casuistic skill of missionaries, missionary societies, and mis- 
 sionary churches, and on which they have not yet reached 
 unanimity of opinion. The arguments on both or on all 
 sides have been clearly and very fairly stated in a pamphlet
 
 172 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 by my excellent and learned friend Dr. Gust, of the Indian 
 Civil Service. It refers chiefly to the missions in India and 
 Africa, and gives a list of twenty-five publications on that 
 subject, mostly pamphlets, seven of the writers being bishops. 
 Three solutions are offered to the question (i) That Christian 
 polygamists be baptized, but not admitted to office; (2) that 
 no polygamist be baptized till he have put away all his wives 
 but one ; (3) that he be admitted as a catechumen, but not 
 baptized. Dr. Cust holds to this latter view, especially for 
 the sake of the wives, that their rights may all be conserved. 
 He holds that the wives may all be baptized if otherwise 
 qualified. Our circumstances were quite different from those 
 that obtained either in India or in Africa. On Aneityum 
 the marriage bond was so slender, that in general it caused 
 no painful wrench to separate a wife from her husband, and 
 there were plenty of eligible men ready to marry the repudi- 
 ated wives. We had no polygamist literally ; we had a few 
 trigamists, but before these became practical questions the 
 third wife had become the wife of some other man, so that 
 we had only bigamy to deal with. We never pushed any 
 delicate or difficult question, so we allowed this question to 
 stand over till it was ripe for solution ; and when it had 
 to be practically disposed of, we found it less difficult than 
 we expected. In the first place, we allowed the husband to 
 keep either of the wives that he preferred, and before the 
 day appointed for the separation we had provided a suitable 
 husband for the repudiated wife, a man who was willing to 
 marry the woman, and a man whom the woman was willing 
 to accept as her husband. In this way there was no difficulty ; 
 the women were better pleased, each to have a husband of her 
 own, than only to be one of the inmates of a harem. Our
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEtTYUM. 173 
 
 first case was a very notable one; it was in July 1854, at the 
 opening of Mr. Geddie's new church. On that occasion Mr. 
 Geddie had no fewer than eleven couples to marry. Among 
 these were four principal chiefs, who had formerly had two 
 wives each, but who had repudiated one of them for some 
 time. However, to give all due publicity to their conduct, 
 they wished to be publicly married to the one, and to declare 
 publicly that they had renounced all claim upon the other. 
 Among the other seven brides were two repudiated wives ; 
 one of them formerly belonged to one of those chiefs, and the 
 other had belonged to another chief, who had put her away 
 some two years before that time. It was only chiefs and 
 important men that could secure more than one wife where 
 women were so scarce. A marriage on Aneityum, as in 
 other parts of the world, was then an exciting occasion. 
 As the natives were mostly assembled for the opening of the 
 new church, and as so many marriages were to be celebrated, 
 it was naturally to be expected that there would be a large 
 meeting, and most certainly so it was; the church, which 
 held from 800 to 900, was completely filled; a good many 
 heathen were there; within and without there must have 
 been nearly 1000 assembled. All, however, was order and 
 decorum. After devotional exercises Mr. Geddie gave an 
 address on marriage and the social position of woman. He 
 showed them that God created only one man and one woman 
 at first, and not many women for one man ; that the souls 
 of women are as precious in the sight of God as the souls 
 of men ; that women are not to be treated as beasts ; that 
 wives are not to be treated even as the mere servants of their 
 husbands, but are to be regarded as their equals and com- 
 panions. After he had married the eleven couples, I de-
 
 174 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 livered a short address both to them and to the audience, and 
 gave them in their own tongue, somewhat amplified, Matthew 
 Hem-y's celebrated commentary on Genesis ii. 21, 22: "The 
 woman was made of a rib out of Adam's side ; not made out 
 of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled 
 on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, from 
 under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be 
 beloved. " I then concluded the meeting with prayer and praise. 
 At that time every great movement on the one side of the 
 island reacted powerfully on the other. So about four months 
 afterwards we had a similar display at my station. In one 
 day at our weekly prayer- meeting I married no fewer than 
 thirteen couples. Four of the men had formerly had two 
 wives each, but had put away one of them, and the four wives 
 thus put away were also all married at the same time to other 
 husbands. On the previous Sabbath I preached on the nature 
 and duties of marriage ; and, on that occasion, notwithstanding 
 a very unfavourable day, we had a large attendance, especially 
 of women. I read and briefly expounded the last twenty- two 
 verses of the Book of Proverbs, which I had translated for the 
 occasion a passage which a venerable puritan divine calls a 
 "looking-glass for ladies, which they are desired to open and 
 dress themselves by, and if they do so, their adorning will 
 be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing 
 of Jesus Christ." The thirteen couples were arranged before 
 the pulpit in three rows, the first row consisted of the four 
 men who were putting away their wives, and the wives whom 
 they were keeping. They stood up, and I required each of the 
 four men to declare publicly that he gave up all claim upon 
 the wife he had put away, and then I married each of them to 
 the wife he had retained. The first row sat down, and the
 
 COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ON ANEITYUM. 175 
 
 second row, containing the four wives just put away, stood up. 
 These I married with equal distinctness. After this they sat 
 down, and the third row stood up, consisting of five couples 
 who had. not been married before. These I also married ; and 
 thus concluded an interesting and important service. We had 
 still three more professing Christianity who had two wives 
 each ; one of these was a chief who had recently joined us ; 
 another was the chief of the district in which we lived, a man 
 by whom the mission had been much benefited. It was under 
 his protection that the Rev. A. W. Murray left the first 
 Samoan teachers, and he was one of the first to make a pro- 
 fession of Christianity, and he had been always true to the 
 teachers and the missionaries. The natives at that time were 
 very fond of new names, and the teachers had gratified them 
 largely in this direction till they had nearly exhausted the 
 more common names in the Bible, as expressed in the Samoan 
 version. To this man and his principal wife they had given 
 the names of Tavita and Patisepa (David and Bathsheba). 
 But though in most other matters his conduct had been very 
 satisfactory, yet about the putting away of his wife he dis- 
 played a great amount of duplicity and obstinacy. He was 
 far from being happy. He had two settlements. The one 
 wife lived in the one, and the other in the other. He lived a 
 week or two with the one wife in the one place, then quarrelled 
 with her, left her, and went and lived a similar length of time 
 with the other. But at length good influences prevailed. He 
 and Patisepa were married, and Yauth, his other wife, was 
 married on the same day to a suitable man, and thus Tavita's 
 domestic troubles were happily brought to an end. He was 
 not the highest in rank, but he was the most influential chief 
 on my side of the island.
 
 CHARTER XXII. 
 
 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM AND THEIR REMEDIES. 
 
 THE chief cause of disease on Aneityum is malaria. Perhaps 
 the gravest difficulty with which the New Hebrides Mission 
 has to contend is the climate. It is, so far as we know, the 
 least healthy of any group of islands in those seas on which 
 missions have been established. If the laws of life are very 
 carefully attended to, a fair average measure of health may 
 be enjoyed, but these laws cannot be trifled with as they may 
 be elsewhere. There is in general nothing specially deadly in 
 the climate it kills by inches, rather than suddenly ; malaria, 
 more or less virulent, continually infests all the low districts 
 of most of the islands, and is most injurious in warm dry 
 seasons. The presence of this malaria has never once been 
 discovered by any one of the five senses. It walks the earth 
 as invisible as the Evil One himself. It cleaves to the 
 ground : it cannot live on the ocean ; hence men are safe 
 till they touch those shores. It requires the four primal 
 elements of the ancients earth, air, heat, and moisture for 
 its production; yet it cannot be detected by the most skil- 
 fully conducted chemical analysis, although from its effects 
 various forms of well-marked diseases, chiefly fever and ague, 
 and milder forms of intermittent fever its existence is as 
 certainly known as the existence of moral depravity is ascer- 
 tained by the degrading heathenism which prevails on every
 
 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM. 177 
 
 one of those non-christianised islands. When new missionaries 
 arrived among us, our warnings to them were like the 
 prophecies of Cassandra to the Trojans ; when we told them 
 of the danger of walking out after the sun went down, they 
 thought we were merely joking ; and when they saw that we 
 were in sober earnest, they began to doubt if we were quite 
 sane, and if there was not some twist about our minds, some 
 mental hallucination on this point. "Surely," they said, 
 " there can be no danger in a climate like this ; there is no 
 cold whatever; see how soft, and mild, and balmy the air is." 
 They had still to learn that fever and ague gives no warning ; 
 it comes galloping, but goes away creeping. It is not till 
 men are in its iron grasp that they realise their danger, and 
 it is then too late to secure their escape. 
 
 There is good reason for believing that sixty years ago the 
 population on Aneityum was at least 12,000. Some have 
 estimated it as high as 20,000; but two terribly alarming 
 epidemics reduced it to less than a third of that number. 
 Samoan teachers were first placed on Aneityum in 1841. It 
 was a few years before the settlement of those teachers that 
 the first epidemic appeared, probably about 1837 or 1838; 
 and it was some time after their settlement, probably 1844 
 or 1845, that the second epidemic broke out. Both epidemics 
 seem to have been of the nature of cholera. We never could 
 learn anything as to their origin or cause. The mortality 
 was so great that the living could not dispose of the dead, 
 which they did at that time by tying stones to their feet and 
 casting the bodies into the sea. No doubt the epidemic was 
 aggravated by the putrefying corpses. We arrived at our 
 conclusions respecting the extent of the mortality in these 
 
 epidemics in this way. In the first years of the mission, Mr. 
 
 M
 
 1 78 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM 
 
 Gecldie and I made a circuit of the island annually ; in each 
 of these visits we spent about a week. We were always 
 accompanied by a party of at least twenty or thirty of the 
 principal Christian natives. At every school-house we held a 
 religious service, at which the natives, as well as the mission- 
 aries, gave addresses. We also sent deputations to the 
 heathen to speak to them at their own homes. Both at the 
 two principal stations, and at four other important stations, 
 as we had with us the most intelligent and best informed 
 men on the island, we took down the names of all the men 
 who had died at these places respectively during both the 
 first and second epidemics ; and making allowance for a fair 
 proportion of women and children, we calculated that fully 
 4000 people must have died during each of the epidemics. 
 No doubt those fearful scourges so affected the general health 
 as largely to account for the subsequent decrease of the popu- 
 lation ; a large proportion of the land was thrown out of culti- 
 vation, and a large amount of swamp land, instead of being 
 finely cultivated food-producing gardens, fell into stagnant 
 marshes, largely increasing the fever-producing malaria. 
 What purpose the Lord had to serve by that awfully start- 
 ling dispensation of His providence is a question not easily 
 answered, only it was not a chance that happened to the 
 people. 
 
 The lessons taught through the losses sustained by the Free 
 Church of Scotland last year, in South Arabia and in Living- 
 stonia, ought to be deeply pondered by all the members of that 
 Church, especially by her medical missionaries. These evils I 
 believe to be remediable. As I have shown elsewhere, much 
 will always depend upon the site and structure of mission 
 houses ; and the whole question of malaria must be carefully
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 179 
 
 studied. Dr. Gunn, I understand, is projecting a Sanitoriuin 
 on Futuna. This cannot be too soon gone about. When 
 Mrs. Charles Murray died, I felt extremely thankful that she 
 had a fully qualified medical man at her bedside, and that no 
 reflections could be made, to the effect that the result might 
 have been different if the requisite skill had been available. 
 But when she had not only the most careful nursing, but also 
 the best medical skill, there was no room for any regrets. It 
 was the Lord's will, and not man's unskilf ulness, to which her 
 death was due. It was for the sake of the mission families, 
 more than for the natives, that I was so anxious to secure the 
 services of a medical missionary on the group. Such an 
 arrangement not only gives confidence to the mission families 
 on the field, but it eases the minds of friends, especially 
 parents, at home, to think that in perilous junctures, their 
 daughters especially, have the benefit of the best skill which 
 the medical schools of Edinburgh or Scotland can supply. It 
 is true that a medical missionary cannot be everywhere at 
 once, cannot attend to every case at the same time ; but when- 
 ever danger is apprehended, arrangements can be made to 
 secure his presence and his help. And he can at all times be 
 watching the laws of health ; he can have every member of 
 the mission making observations for him ; then he can 
 generalise, and then, in consequence of this knowledge, supply 
 every missionary with instructions what he is to avoid, and 
 what he is to do in order to escape the most likely dangers, 
 and to secure the highest degree of attainable health. 
 
 The most common disease on Aneityum and in the New 
 Hebrides, generally, is fever and ague. In different groups 
 on the South Seas malaria has different developments. In 
 the New Hebrides it takes the form of fever and ague, from a
 
 I SO DISEASES ON ANEITYUM 
 
 very mild to a very severe form of the disease. In Fiji it 
 develops into diarrhoea, often of a very troublesome type. In 
 Samoa it produces painful and chronic swellings in the legs 
 and arms, sometimes, if I mistake not, ending in a form of 
 elephantiasis. Of remedies, the great sheet anchor for fever 
 and ague and the other diseases is quinine, and it is matter for 
 thankfulness that it is now become so cheap. The other 
 specific is arsenic ; the most convenient form of administering 
 it we found to be Fowler's Solution of Arsenic. This, how- 
 ever, required to be administered with caution. An aperient 
 is generally administered two or three times a week with these 
 remedies. On our way home from the islands, I met a 
 gentleman in the steamer between Sydney and Melbourne, 
 who told me that in Queensland, to which he belonged, they 
 mixed quinine and Epsom salts, and found this mixture more 
 efficacious than when taken separately, enough of the salts 
 being used to act as an aperient. 
 
 A common complaint among children I found to be worms ; 
 the stomach swelled and became painful, especially after 
 eating, and the child often became much emaciated. For this 
 I found no medicine so effectual as a strong mixture of salt 
 and water; a spoonful administered every morning half-an- 
 hour before any food was taken. This, continued for ten days 
 or a fortnight, generally effected a complete cure ; some of the 
 cures were very striking. The medicine seemed to operate in 
 this way. On the fasting stomach the worms were hungry, and 
 greedily swallowed the salt and water, which acted as a poison 
 to the worms, but as a tonic to the child ; but whatever the 
 modus operandi might be, the remedy was in general effectual. 
 
 TJlceration and skin diseases were common ; and the most 
 effectual remedy that I found was carbolic acid. It was not,
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. iSl 
 
 however, till the last year that I was on the island that I 
 became acquainted with this medicine, and that through the 
 Rev. J. Annand, after he came to the station on Aneityum 
 formerly occupied by Dr. Geddie ; and the occasion was this. 
 A young lad from my station had been engaged for some two 
 years as cook on Eromanga for Mrs. Robertson, and was 
 coming home ; but he had cut the upper part of his foot very 
 badly with an axe. Afterwards some lime fell on it while he was 
 plastering ; the foot had been neglected ; and finally it became 
 a very bad ulcerated wound. My wife and I were on a visit 
 to the other stations in the Dayspring, and arranged to call 
 and bring the lad home. Mr. Robertson had done his utmost, 
 but with very little success. We landed at Mr. Annand's 
 station, and took the lad ashore with us. The smell of the 
 wound was so offensive that he could not stay in the same 
 house with Mr. Annand's natives. I got Mr. Annand to 
 examine the wound ; after doing so, he recommended the 
 application of carbolic acid. It was a new medicine to me ; I 
 had never heard of it before, so far as I remember; but Mr. 
 Annand was not long from home, and he had brought a supply 
 of the medicine with him. I asked him to dress the wound, 
 which he did, with a preparation of one part of the acid to ten 
 of water, and in two days the offensive smell was all gone. 
 We took the lad home with us. I dressed the foot twice a day 
 as suggested by Mr. Annand, and in less than a month the 
 wound was quite healed, and the lad was in every way perfectly 
 well. 
 
 Another case was that of a middle-aged woman, whose skin 
 was all covered with an ulcerous rash, which I never expected 
 to see cured. I gave her a quart bottle, filled with a weak 
 solution of the acid, one part of the acid to about twenty of
 
 I 82 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM 
 
 water. I gave her also a piece of old soft linen. I told her 
 to go home, get a piece of a clean cocoa-nut shell, pour a little 
 of the liquid into it, and twice a- day dip the cloth in the liquid, 
 and wet all her skin with the cloth, and to come back when 
 the contents of the bottle were done. What was my surprise, 
 when, in three weeks, she was present at the weekly prayer- 
 meeting, perfectly cured, her skin as fresh as that of a weaned 
 child, or if one might speak it with reverence, comparing small 
 things with great, the natural with the miraculous, the human 
 with the divine ; her skin was as fresh as one might suppose 
 Naaman's to have been when he stood before Elisha, after he 
 had dipped himself seven times in the Jordan. 
 
 Female complaints were common, especially menorrhagia. 
 I had a copy of Graham on " Diseases of Females," which I 
 often consulted with advantage. In page 91 he strongly re- 
 commends cream of tartar for this ailment and internal passive 
 haemorrhage. " The value," he says, " of this admirable medi- 
 cine is but little known in such cases ; it will, however, be soon 
 ascertained on trial, for where it is suitable, it is equally prompt 
 and successful in its effects." This remedy I often adminis- 
 tered, and with very beneficial, often with very striking, effects. 
 Dr. Graham says it is very effectual in creating red blood. 
 
 I was in general very successful with children. Their 
 diseases were mostly acute and of short standing, and one or 
 two, or at most a few doses of medicine generally effected a 
 cure. When a child was brought with disordered stomach, 
 and a very white tongue, a few doses of rhubarb and calomel 
 almost invariably effected a complete cure. Inflammation of the 
 eyes was a common complaint, but a solution of sugar of lead, 
 or of sulphate of zinc, with a few drops of laudanum or liquid 
 morphia, made a very effective lotion.
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 183 
 
 In their heathen state the natives had no knowledge of 
 
 O 
 
 medicine : all their cures were effected, or were supposed to 
 be effected, by incantations, and they were all performed by 
 the sacred men ; and it was believed that the sacred men could 
 produce diseases as well as cure them. They did not, however, 
 look upon the sacred men as we do upon the medical pro- 
 fession, as a benevolent class of men, or public benefactors, em- 
 ployed always in curing, but never in causing diseases. They 
 looked upon them very much as our forefathers, in former 
 times, looked upon wizards and witches, as exercising their 
 power to cause pain and suffering, not to produce health and 
 happiness, except when largely paid to remove some malady 
 which they themselves had inflicted. They looked upon them 
 very much as Mohammed did upon women, as an evil, a 
 necessary evil it might be, but still as an eviL Their sacred 
 men they felt to be a public burden. At first they looked 
 upon us missionaries as belonging to the same class as their 
 sacred men, and they thought that if they accepted the new 
 religion, they would be adding a load to a burden. When 
 they became better acquainted with us, and found that we 
 could cure them, they still thought that our cures, like those of 
 their sacred men, were effected by incantation, and that one 
 medicine must be able to cure every disease. Hence, when a 
 man had got medicine for himself, he would say, " I want 
 some medicine also for So-and-so." "Very well," I would 
 say, " and what is the matter with him 1 " " Oh," he would 
 say, " I do not know; I saw his brother as I came along, and 
 he said he was very ill, and I was to ask you for some medi- 
 cine for him." " But," said I, " unless you can tell me some- 
 thing about his disease, I cannot give you any medicine. You 
 see this medicine chest ; you see all these bottles : these all
 
 184 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM 
 
 contain different medicines for different diseases ; you know 
 that you suffer from more diseases than one. Now this medi- 
 cine is to cure pains in the head, this is to cure pains in the 
 back, this is to cure pains in the bones, this is to stop vomiting, 
 this is to cause people to sleep : this is to cure one disease, and 
 that to cure another. Now you must go to So-and-so, and 
 tell him to come to me, and explain what is the matter with 
 his brother, and then I will know what medicine I can give 
 him, that it may cure him." It took years, however, to make 
 them all comprehend the difference between the charms and 
 incantations of their sacred men, and the medicines and the 
 medical treatment of the missionaries. 
 
 From the first I opened my dispensary every day at one 
 o'clock for all the patients that came ; and the attendance was 
 smaller or greater according to the state of the public health, 
 from one, two, or three, to twenty or thirty, or even more. 
 A number of the cases, especially among children, were cured, 
 a large number were benefited, and as it happens in all medical 
 practice, in a large number of instances my medical labours 
 were fruitless; but I examined every case carefully, and 
 treated them all honestly, to the best of my knowledge and 
 ability, and the result was, that the natives came to have un- 
 bounded confidence in my medical treatment ; and this depart- 
 ment of my mission work tended greatly to increase my moral 
 influence among the people. 
 
 I had always one and frequently two hospitals for the re- 
 ception of indoor patients, one for the people of the upper or 
 eastern end of my district, and the other for the lower or 
 western part. These were very humble structures, mere huts, 
 erected by the natives themselves under my directions, but 
 they served a useful purpose. They stood at a convenient
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 185 
 
 distance outside of our premises. The natives provided their 
 own food and attendance ; if it was a husband the wife nursed 
 him and attended to him, if it was a girl the mother nursed 
 her, if it was a boy both father and mother were in attendanca 
 I visited the patient and administered the medicine ; my wife 
 supplied tea, biscuit, arrowroot, and other medical comforts : 
 and the elders, deacons, teachers, and church members often 
 went and made worship with them night and morning, and at 
 other times, and sometimes brought a small present of food, 
 and the results were satisfactory ; the social influences, as well 
 as the medical treatment, promoted the recovery of the patients, 
 as the good feeling and cheerfulness thereby engendered were 
 new and powerful curatives added to the sanitary conditions of 
 the island and the hospital. 
 
 There is one point in relation to medicine on which I must 
 say a word or two. It was one of our primary objects in the 
 mission to avoid pauperising the natives, and to cherish in 
 every way among them a spirit of self-respect and indepen- 
 dence, and yet to make the mission as little burdensome as 
 possible. We gave them nothing for nothing. We made 
 them understand that they had no claim upon us for anything, 
 and, as soon as we deemed it to be expedient, we made them 
 pay for their medicines. In Samoa and elsewhere the mis- 
 sionaries did the same, but the Samoan missionaries made 
 every native pay for his own medicines ; but our natives were 
 much poorer than theirs, and we found that with medicines as 
 with books, it was better to lay a tax upon the entire com- 
 munity than to make each man pay for himself. Mr. Geddie 
 and I, therefore, arranged that, week by week, the teacher or 
 the chief should collect from two to four baskets of taro among 
 the people of his district, according to their number, and bring
 
 I 86 DISEASES ON ANEITYUM 
 
 them on the Wednesday, and then every native on both sides 
 of the island was at liberty to go to each of the dispensaries 
 respectively, as often as they required it, and obtain medicine 
 for nothing. I had twenty- eight schools, hence it took twenty- 
 eight weeks to go over these, and as we had a good many 
 marriages during the year, and also other occasions, such as 
 the opening of schoolhouses, at which presents, chiefly of taro, 
 were always made, and at which times we always stopped the 
 taro for the medicine, so it was seldom oftener than once a 
 year that they had to give anything for medicine ; and as the 
 tax fell on every one, and on every one equally, it touched 
 every one so lightly, that it was not felt at all to be a burden. 
 To those who carried the taro I always gave a few fish-hooks, 
 which rendered the labour less irksome ; or, if they came from 
 an inland district, where they could not fish, my wife gave 
 them some needles and a portion of thread. These weekly 
 contributions supplied our household ourselves and the natives 
 who lived with us with the most important article of vege- 
 table food that we required. Our friends at home supplied the 
 medicines. The Rev. Dr. Goold's congregation in Edinburgh 
 presented me with a medicine-chest and a set of medical instru- 
 ments when I first went out to the mission in 1844, and as 
 often as requested they refilled it. On one or two occasions 
 the Rev. J. Kay's congregation in Castle-Douglas sent me a 
 valuable supply of medicines, through the late J. Paterson, 
 Esq., of the Apothecary's Hall. On all occasions our friends 
 were thoughtful and liberal. We never made an appeal to 
 them for medicine or for anything else but we met with a 
 generous response. 
 
 The birth-rate since we went to Aneityum has always been 
 high ; but alas ! the death-rate has always been higher. For
 
 AND THEIR REMEDIES. 187 
 
 about ten years before we left the island the birth and death 
 rate stood something like this : birth-rate, 99^ ; death-rate, 
 icoj. A reverse of this ratio would make us equal to what 
 exists in India, where the birth-rate is equal to 100^, and the 
 death-rate to 99 J ; and this going on for ages has resulted in 
 the millions of our Indian Empire, instead of the steady de- 
 population of Aneityum. Some years after we left the island 
 the disproportion between the birth and the death rate was 
 still greater. But we are still hoping that, when the present 
 transition period has passed, and Christianity, with its strongly 
 conservative influence, has been fully and permanently esta- 
 blished, there will set in, as in many of the eastern islands, 
 where the depopulation was as great as it has been with us, a 
 steady increase in the number of the inhabitants ; and thus 
 may " a little one become a thousand, and a small one a strong 
 nation ; " and may " the Lord hasten it in His time ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 WHEN the mission work was begim on Aneityum, the island 
 was governed by six principal chiefs, and about fifty under 
 chiefs. The name of a principal chief was Natimarith, from 
 Natimi, man, and arith, high; a secondary chief was called 
 Natimi alupas, from Natimi, man, and alupas, great. In 
 heathen times the duties of the priesthood were discharged 
 chiefly by the Natimariths. Each Natimarith, in his own 
 district, was a kind of Pontifex maximus, or high priest ; he 
 presided at feasts, and performed certain sacerdotal duties; 
 but when heathenism came to an end, their priestly vocation 
 also terminated, and their civil power alone remained ; but it 
 became very much increased when it became based upon 
 Scriptural authority. In heathen times there was no union, 
 no united action among the chiefs. The normal state of 
 society was for one part of the island to be at war with 
 another part ; for two districts to be at war with the other 
 four, but not necessarily the same districts. On the south 
 side of the island, Mr. Geddie's side, the principal district was 
 Anelgauhat, of which Nohoat was the Natimarith, and after 
 his death his son Lathella ; on the north side it was Aneityo, 
 of which Nowanpakau was the Natimarith. At first, when 
 Mr. Geddie was settled, the three high chiefs on the south 
 side were Nohoat, Yiapai, and Karaheth, all three men of
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 189 
 
 influence and of great force of character, who joined the 
 mission at an early stage, threw their influence into the 
 movement, and helped it greatly. Topoe, or Topwe, an under 
 chief, a brother-in-law of Nohoat's, was another power for 
 good ; and Waihit, a famous sacred man, was for thirty years 
 a great support of the mission. The Natimariths on my side 
 were Nemet, Viali, and Nimivero, all three feeble men ; but 
 we had three under chiefs, Tavita, Luka, and Napollos, who 
 proved admirable substitutes. Ta vita's history I have given 
 elsewhere. Luka, in his heathen state, was a great warrior, 
 but a great savage ; on the death of his son, a little boy, he 
 strangled his own sister, that her spirit might accompany the 
 little boy's to Umaatmas, the Land of the Dead, to attend upon 
 him there. When the first Samoan teachers were settled at 
 Ipeke, the district adjoining Aname, afterwards my station, 
 and were beginning to influence the young men, Luka became 
 very angry with them, and set off one day, followed by a party 
 of the heathen, and carrying a massive spear with which to 
 murder them. The two Samoans and their wives got word of 
 his intentions, and kept inside the house, barred the door, and 
 betook themselves to prayer. Luka came on, broke open the 
 door, and told them that he had come to kill them. They 
 calmly looked him in the face and told him they were not 
 afraid to die, but warned him to think what he was doing, for 
 that God would certainly avenge their deaths, either here or 
 hereafter. Luka raised his spear, but, as Milton, I think it is, 
 says somewhere, "Awful is the power of goodness," and a 
 higher authority says, " The wicked flee when no man pursueth, 
 but the righteous are bold as a lion," so their words troubled 
 Luka's heart ; he was agitated, the cord with which he poised 
 his spear slipped from his finger, and the weapon when he threw 

 
 190 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 it fell powerless to the ground. A conversation took place, 
 the teachers engaged in prayer, and Luka went home no 
 longer a heathen, and in the course of a few Sabbaths he was 
 attending the place of worship. He was one of the very first 
 whom I baptized and admitted to the fellowship of the Church. 
 When he was an elderly man, and we had difficulty in getting 
 teachers to go to Tanna, Luka and his wife volunteered to go 
 thither, as he was well known there, and had much influence 
 wit'h the Tannese, to assist Mr. and Mrs. Watt. After they went 
 thither, they met with great opposition from the heathen. His 
 wife was indeed poisoned by the wife of a Tannese chief, who 
 intentionally gave her a poisonous fish to eat, when she was 
 sick, under the pretence that it was a good fish. On one 
 occasion the heathen attempted to murder Luka; an armed 
 party surrounded him, they levelled their muskets at his head, 
 one bullet knocked off his hat, another one passed through his 
 shirt, other three fell short of him, but the Lord protected 
 him, and he escaped unhurt. Luka lived to a good old age at 
 Kwamera, Mr. Watt's station, and died honoured and lamented. 
 The people of Itath, the land where he was chief, followed his 
 example, and all along took the lead in Christianity, education, 
 and civilization. A very interesting account of Luka, written 
 by Mrs. Watt of Tanna, appeared in the juvenile magazine, 
 the Day spring, for November 1879, published by Messrs. 
 Parlane of Paisley. 
 
 Napollos was a third Natimi alupas, or common chief, one 
 of the three mighties in my district. In heathen times he was 
 a great warrior, possessed great influence, was a man famous 
 both in camp and in council, in planning an attack or a 
 defence, or in carrying it into effect. The shadow of his arm 
 struck terror into the hearts of his enemies, and the sound of
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 191 
 
 his footsteps was recognised as the harbinger of death; he 
 had joined the Christian party before our arrival. Shortly 
 after our settlement, of his own accord, both he and 1 his wife 
 came and lived beside us for two years, that they might get 
 all the instructions we could give them, both scriptural and 
 secular. It was to his land, and at his request, that I sent 
 out Yona, my first native teacher. Next to the mission 
 station, Ijasis, his land, and Itath, Luka's land, were the 
 most advanced, on my side of the island, both in scholarship 
 and Christianity. He died just immediately before our return 
 to the island with the New Testament, in 1863. Tavita, 
 Luka, and Napollos were all three very able rulers, which 
 indicated that they possessed in an eminent degree the higher 
 order of intellect. 
 
 The chiefs both supreme and subordinate were partly 
 hereditary and partly elective. If a chief died, his son, if 
 grown up, succeeded him; if he had no son grown up, his 
 brother or some near relative succeeded ; his daughter never 
 succeeded the father : there was a tacit Salic law, minors and 
 daughters were always excluded ; and eligible candidates were 
 always confined to certain families. Human nature is human 
 nature all the world over. On Aneityum, rank is recognised 
 and appreciated as much as among the British aristocracy, the 
 Spanish nobility, or the Princes of Germany. In the early 
 part of this century the Duke of Beaufort had six daughters ; 
 they were all married ; the Countess of Galloway was one of 
 them, and it was said of her that she made the poorest match 
 of all the six, so well were they all married. But be that as 
 it may have been, we could nearly equal this on Aneityum. 
 About that very time one of the Natimariths of Aneityum had 
 five daughters, who all grew up to womanhood, and each one
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 of them was married to a Natimarith ; but I mention this for 
 another purpose. When we .were settled on Aneityum, Nemet, 
 one of our three Natimariths, who had been married to one of 
 these five daughters of that high chief, had two daughters but 
 no son. His eldest daughter was a young, giddy, thoughtless 
 girl of whom nobody thought anything. By and by, as she 
 was a high chief's daughter, Mrs. Inglis took her into her 
 boarding-school, where she remained for several years, and 
 developed into a tall, good-looking young woman, though still 
 somewhat reckless and harum-scarum. At this time, Solomona, 
 one of our best, cleverest, and most scholarly young men, asked 
 her in marriage, and she was willing to take him ; but family 
 considerations interposed. He was the son of only a small 
 chief, a poor gentleman, whereas she, both by father and 
 mother, belonged to one of the highest families in the land ; 
 and the whole family connection was arrayed against them. She 
 must marry nobody but a Natimarith, as her mother and all her 
 aunts had done before her. But when the family council was 
 assembled, Eitia gave them a bit of her mind ; trusting to her 
 position, she spoke more freely than a woman of lower rank 
 durst have done. "When I was a child," she said, "you 
 treated me like a wild pig, and let me run about as I liked, 
 and seek my food where I could find it. You looked upon me 
 as a naldi natmas (literally a little devil), a contemptible 
 creature, utterly worthless. But now, when Mrs. Inglis, 
 after taking me in, clothing me, and educating me, has made 
 a woman of me, you come now and say that I must take a 
 man whom I know nothing about, and whom I care nothing 
 about, because his father is a Natimarith. No, I want Solo- 
 mona, and I'll have him if I can get him." However, the 
 family influence prevailed, and, although there was neither UB
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 193 
 
 elopement nor a suicide nor any of those tragic endings with 
 which the writers of fiction so often finish up their stories, 
 Ritia was married to a respectable man ; but when the measles 
 swept over Aneityum she was one of the 1200 that died in 
 that epidemic, purposely brought to the island by the traders. 
 
 We never assumed any civil power, we recognised and 
 accepted whatever civil government existed; we instructed 
 and guided the authorities as opportunities occurred. In all 
 offences against life we counselled severe punishment, so far 
 as the Scriptures sanctioned it ; but in all offences against 
 property merely, we counselled the use of mild punishments. 
 The natives wished to punish indiscriminately : for the killing 
 of a pig and the killing of a man they would have inflicted 
 nearly the same punishment. In all cases we counselled 
 prompt punishment, while public sympathy was with the 
 authorities and not with the criminal. There, as elsewhere, 
 but especially in such a state of society, if punishment is 
 postponed, public sympathy begins to turn in favour of the 
 criminal and against the law, and the ends of punishment are 
 defeated. 
 
 A case occurred in New Zealand in the early days of its 
 history, before the British Government took possession of it as 
 a colony. At that time there were several whaling stations 
 established along the coasts of those islands. Within what is 
 now the province of Otago, one of those whaling parties had 
 apprehended a native for some crime, and adjudged him to be 
 hanged, but as the time for executing the sentence drew near, 
 they became alarmed. Men-of-war were sailing in those seas, 
 and the power of the criminal courts in Sydney extended to 
 New Zealand, and they might easily get themselves into 
 
 trouble. Meanwhile, one of their number, who could speak 
 
 K
 
 194 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 the Maori language, went to the native, and persuaded him 
 that it would be much more honourable for him to shoot 
 himself, than to be hanged by the pakeha (foreigner). A 
 loaded musket was introduced into the place of his confinement, 
 and the native shot himself. In this way the whalers gained 
 their end, and evaded the legal consequences to which they 
 were exposing themselves, and of which they were now 
 becoming seriously afraid. 
 
 In some of the eastern islands the missionaries, assisted in 
 some cases by an English lawyer, prepared a civil constitution 
 for the natives. But, as far as I know, these remained to a 
 large extent a dead letter. At first we got the natives, as a 
 beginning in legislation, to pass four enactments, which Mr. 
 Geddie printed. One of these was to prohibit the sale of 
 native women to white men, and which effectually prevented 
 that practice. With these four Acts of Parliament, printing 
 for the Government ceased. We very soon concluded that it 
 was our best policy to let the framework of society remain as 
 we found it ; not to touch the common or unwritten law of 
 the land ; and as for statutory law, we thought that the ten 
 commandments would be amply sufficient for all ordinary 
 purposes. The natives understood their own customs better 
 than any foreign legislation that we could introduce. 
 
 Our chiefs were not at all the important-looking men that 
 many supposed them to be. They were not tall, gigantic men, 
 like the chiefs in Eastern Polynesia. There was no court 
 language, no class of words employed exclusively in speaking 
 to, or of, chiefs, as in Samoa They were not objects of dread, 
 whose shadow even no man durst touch, as they were in 
 Hawaii. They were plain, simple-looking men, whom no 
 stranger would have recognised in a crowd ; and as there was
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 195 
 
 very little formality among the people, very little deference 
 appeared to be paid to their rank. Still it was surprising to 
 see the power of preserving peace and order over the island 
 which they acquired after Christianity was accepted. In 
 heathenism it required very little authority to get men to 
 commit murder and fight, to retaliate and take vengeance, 
 because all their natural instincts led them in that direction ; 
 but, in a community newly reclaimed from heathenism, to 
 keep men all quiet required vastly more influence of one kind 
 or another. There were few breaches of the peace, and when 
 any breaches did occur they were quickly punished by the 
 chiefs. The particulars of one instance I shall give by way 
 of illustration. A man belonging to an inland district had 
 committed adultery with his neighbour's wife. The woman's 
 friends belonged to the other side of the island. When they 
 heard of this affair a few of them went to talk with the man 
 about his conduct. Like most evildoers, he was angry at this 
 interference ; and when they were near his house he went out 
 to meet them, threw his spear among them, and wounded one 
 man severely in the foot ; had it struck him in the side it 
 might have killed him. In old times this would have led to 
 a war between the two tribes ; the one party to revenge the 
 deed, the other party to defend the evildoer. The chief of 
 the district came to me immediately to consult with me what 
 was to be done, as he expected all the friends of the wounded 
 man to be at his house next day. I advised him to ask some 
 of the other chiefs to come and help him to punish the man, 
 but not to attempt anything till he had plenty of help. He 
 immediately asked three or four of the nearest chiefs to assist 
 him. On the following morning, these all repaired to this 
 assize meeting, each chief accompanied by a few trustworthy
 
 ig6 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 influential friends. In this country such an offence would 
 have been punished by so many days' or months' imprisonment, 
 but there were no jails there, and all punishments required to 
 be summary. They adjudged the man to be tied and fined, a 
 very heavy punishment. They tied him hand and foot for 
 half a day, and fined him of a large pig, which they gave to 
 the friends of the wounded man. The man had just three 
 pigs, and he pleaded hard that they would take the least one ; 
 but the chiefs were inexorable and took the largest. The 
 people from the other side went away well pleased, satisfied 
 that full justice had been done. I was always anxious when 
 such cases occurred, and in that instance I felt great relief 
 when the people returned from the trial and told me how the 
 chiefs had acted, and what the result had been. There was no 
 excitement, no high words ; but everything was done with 
 order and dignity. As I have already said, in all cases where 
 property only was concerned, I always advised the chiefs to 
 adopt a gentle policy, to talk to the offenders, and to get them 
 to make restitution, employing moral and personal influence 
 rather than legal authority, to carry out, if possible, a paternal 
 government. But, in all cases where life was imperilled, I 
 counselled prompt and vigorous measures, such as would strike 
 terror into the hearts of evildoers, and I got the chiefs to 
 unite in helping one another, so that their authority would 
 not be disputed. We always aimed at two things with our 
 chiefs that their government should be good, and that it 
 should be strong. And happily in every important case that 
 occurred, on either side of the island, acting on our advice, 
 they proceeded unitedly, and also carried public sympathy 
 along with them, and thus increased both their official autho- 
 triy and their personal influence.
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANE1TYUM. 1 97 
 
 For the sake of showing the working of our criminal 
 courts, I may here give a report of two cases that occurred, 
 the one on the one side of the island, and the other on the 
 other : the one a case affecting life, the other a case affect- 
 ing property. I shall relate the property case first, and as 
 I wrote an account of it at the time it occurred, which 
 appeared in the R. P. magazine, I shall quote from my own 
 letter. 
 
 "Perhaps the most readily observed crime among the 
 natives on this island is stealing, and I believe the evil is 
 increasing. Not that the people are getting worse, but that 
 the opportunities for stealing are more frequent and more 
 favourable. There is more property to be stolen ; and there 
 are more facilities for concealing it. But there is not now, 
 nor has there been for a long time past, any stealing of food, 
 as there used to be in heathenism, or as there is still on 
 heathen islands. During the past year there has been no 
 punishing for stealing on my side of the. island. There have 
 been several cases of stealing, most of them of a petty char- 
 acter, but as the thieves were not found out, there could be no 
 punishment inflicted. The last case of punishment for stealing 
 by natives belonging to my side of the island, was at our last 
 Synod here, when the stealing of four white shirts belonging 
 to the crew of H.M.S. Basilisk, and valued at i6s. 6d., was 
 wound up, and the last of the fines paid. Why those washing 
 such a quantity of clothes, as was spread out on that occasion, 
 should have left them unguarded, while there were five or six 
 boats' crews of whalers in the immediate neighbourhoood, is 
 to me unaccountable. I do not think that they would have 
 done so in Sydney. The opportunity here certainly made the 
 thieves ; a single sentinel would have kept them all honest
 
 1 98 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 men. I have no serious fears about stealing ever becoming a 
 formidable crime on this island. 
 
 "The case was this: On the pth September 1872, H.M.S. 
 Basilisk, Captain Moresby, came into Aneityum harbour, on 
 his way from the islands to the north of Aneityum to Sydney. 
 It was the middle of the whaling season. Both the whaling 
 stations had all their boats manned and afloat ; almost all the 
 thoughtless, reckless young men were collected at the harbour. 
 The seamen of the Basilisk went ashore to wash their clothes, 
 and they spread them out on the beach to dry, opposite a piece 
 of dense bush, and five white shirts, or jumpers, were stolen 
 by the native whalers. That same day, without knowing any- 
 thing about the arrival of the man-of-war, Mrs. Inglis and I 
 had gone round to the harbour, to be present at the communion 
 on the following Sabbath. The first news we heard on stepping 
 ashore was about this stealing. I was very much annoyed to 
 think that the natives should be stealing from a man-of-war, 
 a thing that they had never done before. Captain Moresby, 
 who is the warm friend of missions, felt sorry that the fair 
 fame of the Aneityumese should be thus tarnished. The 
 better class of the natives were much grieved, and did their 
 best to find out the thieves ; they discovered one of them, 
 and the stolen article was returned to the ship. Manura, a 
 Tahitian, who was foreman in one of the establishments, im- 
 posed a fine of sixpence each on one of his boats' crews, who 
 had been seen in suspicious proximity to the exposed clothing. 
 But four of the articles could not be found. 
 
 " The Basilisk was to sail the following morning at 1 1 
 o'clock, and there was not time for the chiefs to discover and 
 arrest the offenders. Mr. Murray, the missionary in charge of 
 the station, and I, therefore, went on board in the morning,
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 199 
 
 to explain to Captain Moresby the circumstances of the case. 
 As Mr. Murray had been but recently settled, and still un- 
 acquainted with native character and customs, I undertook the 
 whole responsibility of the affair. I said to Captain Moresby 
 that I would pay for the articles stolen, and take the chiefs 
 for my security for being paid. He was unwilling that I 
 should run any risk in the matter ; but I assured him that I 
 had no fears, I knew the chiefs and the people too well to 
 have the slightest apprehensions about not being refunded. 
 Inquiries were then made at the purser, and it was found that 
 sixteen shillings and sixpence would replace the articles stolen. 
 I accordingly paid the money, received a written discharge for 
 the debt from Captain Moresby, and saved the character of 
 the Aneityumese. 
 
 " As soon as the machinery of the law, as it exists on 
 Aneityum, could be set in motion, by Lathella on the one 
 side of the island, and by Nowanpakau on the other, the 
 thieves were discovered, and the stolen property found. The 
 culprits were each fined to the extent of the value of the 
 article he had stolen, and the articles taken from them ; but, 
 as there are no professional lawyers on Aneityum, each man and 
 his friends conducting his own case, the Bench adjudged no 
 law expenses in addition. It was not, however, till the meeting 
 of the Synod in the following year, 1873, that the matter 
 was finally disposed of. Mr. Murray dispensed the com- 
 munion at that time, the chiefs from both sides of the island 
 were present, and a large assembly of people. The chiefs met 
 on the Monday, and had up before them all the young men 
 chargeable with that or any other offence during the previous 
 year, and talked very earnestly to them. The chiefs paid 
 me out of the fines, while the stolen articles and Manura's
 
 200 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 sixpences were divided between the two principal Natimariths, 
 and by them appropriated respectively, as part payment for 
 two nets, one for each side of the island, which the inland 
 people (the great net manufacturers of the island) were mak- 
 ing for the shore people. This is a kind of public treasury 
 into which fines of this kind are usually thrown, which, as 
 all are benefited thereby, has the effect of enlisting public 
 . sympathy on the side of public authority. This is the nearest 
 parallel case that has occurred on this island to the gigantic 
 robbery on the Bank of England that was going on about 
 the same time. But it is satisfactory to know that while 
 both in Britain and Aneityum crimes may be committed, they 
 cannot be committed with impunity. In both countries the 
 arm of Justice is strong strong to protect the innocent, and 
 inflict merited punishment upon the guilty." 
 
 The next case was one affecting not property but life. It 
 was not murder but it was culpable homicide, and had to be 
 dealt with by the constituted authorities. This case occurred 
 on my side of the island. It was this : On the 3oth May 
 1865 a native living at Anpeke, about two miles or more 
 west from our station, whose name was Yakari, killed his wife 
 Lavi by striking her violently on the side with the paddle of 
 a canoe. In the morning he had told her to do some digging, 
 but she, evidently thinking that there was plenty of time, 
 instead of going to the plantation went to the school As she 
 came out of the schoolhouse he saw her, and, being a man 
 of a vehement and hasty temper, he lifted a paddle and struck 
 her a most severe blow on the side, meaning to produce pain but 
 not to cause death ; Lavi fell at once to the ground insensible. 
 Some of the women gathered around her, and lifted her up ; 
 but, though not dead, she was unconscious. They took her
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 2OI 
 
 into the house, but she expired in half an hour. Yakari was 
 panic stricken ; he was more taken by surprise than any 
 person present. He had never dreamed of such a result ; he 
 stood petrified. Tidings soon reached me of what had hap- 
 pened. I sent word to the three Natimariths, requesting 
 them to meet, and to bring their chiefs with them, that they 
 might inquire into the matter. We all met at Anpeke. 
 Every man of note on my side of the island was there, and 
 a good many from the other side, for the news spread like 
 wildfire. No trial was required ; the facts were patent, and 
 Yakari never attempted to deny them : the only question was 
 about the punishment. I explained to them the difference 
 between murder and manslaughter ; that this was not a case 
 of murder, but of what is called "culpable homicide;" that 
 Yakari had killed his wife, but it was not through what is 
 called " malice prepense ; " he had not killed her intentionally. 
 He had had no desire to kill her, or no thought of doing so ; 
 but his sin and his crime was striking her in such a way as 
 to cause her death ; that in Britain there was always a clear 
 distinction made between murder and manslaughter. While 
 capital punishment was inflicted on the murderer, a milder 
 punishment was inflicted for manslaughter. In this case it 
 would be contrary to the Word of God, and to the practice 
 followed in Britain, to put Yakari to death ; but as he had 
 been guilty of a very great crime, they might inflict any 
 punishment they thought proper upon him, only they must 
 spare his life, and not do any injury to his body. I had now 
 explained to them the Law of God, and the practice pursued 
 in Britain, it was for themselves to carry out these principles, 
 and punish Yakari as they thought best. I was not a chief, 
 and I had no power to do more than explain to them the
 
 2O2 CIVIL GOVERNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 Word of God. I suggested to them that Nowanpakau, as 
 being the principal Natimarith, should preside, and that the 
 other two Natimariths should sit one on each side of him, 
 and that all the chiefs should assemble round about them. 
 They should decide what was to be done. Nowanpakau 
 would pronounce the sentence, and the chiefs would carry it 
 out themselves. This was all done after I had left them. 
 It was agreed that Yakari's arms were to be tied, a very 
 painful operation, and the chiefs were to talk to him; his 
 house was to be pulled down and burned ; all his property 
 and food were to be taken from him, and given to the chiefs, 
 to be distributed among them by the Natimarith. He was 
 to be banished for twelve months to the other end of the 
 island, and made to live in the land of a particular chief, who 
 was to be responsible for looking after him ; and he was never 
 to be allowed to take another wife ; he had had two already, 
 and he had been good to neither of. them. The chiefs were 
 unanimous, and the people supported them as one man. The 
 uncertainty of the law was anticipated, and its delay was 
 unknown on that occasion. There and then, on the spot,~and 
 on that very day, the sentence was carried out to the very 
 letter. Before the sun had sunk in the western ocean, 
 Yakari was being conducted to the land of his exile. He 
 served out his term of banishment, then left the land of 
 strangers, and returned to his own people; but when he 
 returned, I never saw a more changed man. I do beh'eve 
 that his punishment was blessed of the Lord for leading to 
 his conversion. His whole appearance was changed. During 
 the previous thirteen years that I had known him, while for 
 the most part of it he was nominally a Christian, his uniform 
 bearing was that of a heathen ; but during the following ten
 
 CIVIL GOVEKNMENT ON ANEITYUM. 203 
 
 or eleven years that we were on the island he seemed to be 
 another man ; formerly he was for the most part sour, glum, 
 and sullen ; but afterwards there was a cheerfulness and 
 alacrity about his religious movements that I had never seen 
 before. Generally he was twice in the house of God every 
 Sabbath, and although he lived more than two miles distant, 
 he was at the prayer meeting every Wednesday afternoon. 
 He entered my candidates' class, was baptized, and became 
 a member of the Church, and I never heard a word against 
 him all these ten or eleven years. In a small way it might 
 have been said of him, as the Kev. Sydney Smith said of his 
 distinguished friend and contemporary, the Hon. Francis 
 Horner, that "the ten commandments were written on his 
 face, and all the law on his gait and manner." Most certainly 
 civil government is of divine appointment, and in the lowest 
 and least civilised communities, if acting on anything like 
 Bible principles, the magistrate is the minister of God for 
 good, proving himself to be a terror to evildoers, and a praise 
 to them that do well. And this we found to our happy 
 experience on Aneityum.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OK FOKEIGNEES. 
 
 IN the Aneityumese language nup signifies people ; u, i, or o, 
 of ; and tonga, foreign. This word is applied to all who are not 
 natives. But it is not applied to all foreigners. The mission- 
 aries are nup-u-missionary; those belonging to men-of-war 
 are nup-u-man-o-war, and all the better class of white people 
 are nup-u-Beretani. The French are mvp-u-wiwi. But traders 
 and all common white people are nup-u-tonga. Everything 
 foreign, everything not produced on the island, is i-tonga. 
 When we went to Aneityum the nup-u-tonga were a numerous 
 and influential class in those islands. Their influence had to be 
 taken carefully into account. They at first appeared as sandal- 
 wood traders, then as whalers, then as engaged in the labour 
 traffic, and finally as general traders. At first the nup-u- 
 missionary were as nothing compared with the nup-u-tonga. 
 They were allowed to hold their place more by sufferance 
 than by anything else. When I first visited the New Hebrides 
 in 1850, there was a large sandal- wood establishment on 
 Aneityum, supported by leading merchants in Sydney; the 
 wood was collected on Santo and Eromanga, stored and 
 cleaned on Aneityum, and once a quarter shipped on to China. 
 ^70,000 worth of sandal-wood was said to be collected on 
 Eromanga alone. It was a sort of East India Company on a 
 small scale, and not much more favourable to the mission, not
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 205 
 
 much more kindly in their feelings towards Messrs. Geddie 
 and Powell, when they landed on Aneityum, than that great 
 Oriental Corporation was toward Messrs. Carey, Marshman, 
 and Ward, when they located themselves in the Danish settle- 
 ment of Serampore. But when my wife and I settled on 
 Aneityum in 1852, the- proprietor of that establishment 
 had removed to Tanna, and shortly afterwards he removed to 
 Noumea, in New Caledonia; and as the "gold fever" broke 
 out in Australia about that time, in a year or two all the 
 floating population were drawn away both from Aneityum 
 and most of the other islands, leaving the mission in the full 
 possession of the field, and by the time they began to return, 
 we had gained such an influence over the natives, that we had 
 no special difficulty in holding our own against them. Never- 
 theless, we had to act towards them, as missionaries have to 
 do everywhere, with great circumspection, so that if we could 
 not obtain their friendship and assistance we might disarm 
 their hostility, and secure, at least, their neutrality. 
 
 For some years about that time our friends on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, and elsewhere, had been bespattering us with 
 greatly more praise than was for our general good. It is, 
 however, a wise and merciful arrangement in Divine providence, 
 that when pride buds, the rod blossoms, with which it is to be 
 corrected (Ezek. vii. 10). We were kept happily free from 
 the woe denounced against those of whom " all men speak well." 
 With our fellow-countrymen either sojourning or sailing among 
 those islands, we, in general, got on very well ; they were for 
 the most part obliging, and acted in a kind and friendly 
 manner; and we endeavoured to reciprocate their kindness, 
 and oblige and benefit them as we had opportunity. Still, at 
 times, our work came into collision with theirs. Our operations
 
 206 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 interfered, or were supposed to interfere, with their interests. 
 We used all our influence to get the natives to give up the use 
 of tobacco, and to sell their produce and their labour for cloth 
 and other useful articles, rather than for useless or pernicious 
 luxuries. In former times tobacco was the staple article of 
 payment, and it continued to be by far the cheapest that the 
 traders could employ. They could not openly object to the 
 natives refusing tobacco and preferring other articles, but 
 many of them did not like it. All along, too, we set our faces 
 against rum and other intoxicants. We also had been using 
 our best endeavours to elevate the status of our chiefs, believing 
 that no government was so bad as a weak government. We, 
 of course, used no means but moral suasion to accomplish these 
 ends. We instructed the chiefs on their duties, obligations, 
 and responsibilities; and the people on their privileges, and 
 the duties they owed to their superiors. These instructions 
 produced results, not always to the liking of those who thought 
 that the natives should, at all times, do just as they wished 
 them, and no otherwise. If the natives were not disposed to 
 sell always when they wished to buy, or to work when they 
 wished to employ them, we generally got the blame of the 
 refusal. Every inconvenience which they experienced, in 
 their intercourse with the natives, was charitably ascribed to 
 our interference, or to our teaching. There were no chiefs 
 ever heard of on the island, it was said, till we made them. 
 We protected the poor women, and that, in the eyes of some, 
 was an unjustifiable restraint upon the liberty of the subject. 
 For these and similar reasons, the scourge of tongues was 
 frequently applied with great freedom to our backs, and 
 occasionally, without any feelings of delicacy, even to our faces. 
 This latter mode of flagellation, however, though more painful,
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 2 07 
 
 was less dangerous; as the weapon being perceived, it was 
 often practicable to parry the blows, or even make them recoil 
 on the head of those inflicting them. For although we did 
 not render railing for railing, yet, at such times, we had 
 occasionally an opportunity, in the way of self-defence, of 
 stating important facts, and publishing important truths 
 and principles. Mr. and Mrs. Geddie, from their residing at 
 the haven of ships, and coming oftener into contact with our 
 European neighbours, were more frequently honoured with 
 those biiffetings than we were. Still, even we were occasionally 
 drawn out from our obscurity, and made ample sharers in the 
 same privileges. Like Christian and Faithful at Vanity Fair, 
 Mr. Geddie and I were sometimes made to stand on the pillory 
 together. On one occasion we sat for four long hours hearing 
 ourselves abused, and listening to an enumeration of the injuries 
 done to the commerce of those seas by the operations of the 
 mission. They all readily admitted at times that religion was 
 a good thing. They approved highly, they said, of religion 
 in its proper place. But then the natives were getting too 
 much of it. They evidently thought that religion should be 
 administered on homoeopathic principles, and that the doses 
 both for the natives and themselves should be infinitesimally 
 small It would be a long story, and neither very interesting 
 nor very edifying, to repeat all the outs and ins of the charges 
 preferred against us during that four hours sederunt, with all 
 the replies, duplies, and triplies brought out in the defence. 
 One of the gravest charges was as follows : " Why," said the 
 leading speaker, not in joke, but in sober earnest, " if things 
 go on at this rate, they will soon be altogether unbearable. 
 This island will soon be what England was in the days of the 
 Commonwealth, when
 
 208 NDP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 ' They hanged a cat on Monday, 
 For killing mice on Sunday.' 
 
 We shall have the times of the Covenanters back again." 
 We had nothing to say in reply, except a silent amen ! Could 
 we believe our own ears ? Were we really accomplishing such 
 wonders, our enemies themselves being witnesses ? Were we 
 making Aneityum to resemble Puritan England, or Covenant- 
 ing Scotland ? England as it was in the days of Owen, Howe, 
 and Baxter, and Scotland as it was in the days of Henderson, 
 Gillespie, and Rutherford? It was worth sitting four long 
 hours in such a position to hear the matter wound up with 
 such a charge. I simply hinted that it was in those times 
 that Britain rose from being a second or third rate nation 
 to take her place as one of the leading powers of Europe. I 
 said that every reader of history knew that it was not till the 
 thunders of Blake that old stern puritan had humbled 
 the pride of Holland, and scattered the armaments of Spain, 
 that the song arose, " Britannia rules the waves." These 
 charges, comparing small things with great, seemed to bear 
 such a strong family likeness to those drawn up at Jerusalem 
 by John, Annas, Caiaphas, Alexander and their company, and 
 those set forth at Ephesus by Demetrius and his fellow-crafts- 
 men, that we felt as if we were more akin to the Apostles than 
 we had ever before dared to suppose that we were. We 
 thought that we understood better than we ever did before, 
 how it was that they rejoiced. It is, however, a very simple 
 thing to play the confessor or the martyr when a man feels, 
 as we did, that his head is quite safe on his shoulders. 
 
 The world is slow to admit the claims of Christianity, and to 
 recognise the benefits that flow from its influence. Even such 
 an enlightened statesman as the late Earl of Derby wished to
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 2 09 
 
 attribute the abolition of the suttee in India, and all the im- 
 provements in the administration of law and justice in the 
 East to anything and everything but the Gospel. So our nup- 
 u-tonga friends out there, though they wished to see the natives 
 peaceable and honest, that life and property might be secure, 
 yet when the Gospel had effected that change, either directly or 
 indirectly, they wished to ascribe it to commerce, rather than to 
 Christianity. It was all the effect of tobacco and gunpowder, 
 the love of the one, and the fear of the other. Even Richard 
 Cobden believed that he would chain down the spirit of war 
 by bands of calico, and bring about the peaceful days of the 
 millennium by the potent influence of free trade. There, in 
 our islands, it was to be ushered in by pipes, muskets, and 
 clouds of smoke. Christianity, such as we taught them, some 
 of our countrymen, professedly well versed in theology, de- 
 clared was not the right Christianity at all, not the Christianity 
 of the New Testament, but some puritanical, pharisaical 
 imitation of it, which made the natives not better, but greatly 
 worse. It made them (the natives) to have greatly less love 
 for tobacco, and greatly less fear for gunpowder than they had 
 before we went among them. It made them begin, at least, 
 to think and act for themselves, which, it was assumed, they 
 had no right to do, as the blacks were made only to be slaves 
 to the whites, and whoever taught them anything else did 
 them only an injury. 
 
 But we were more afraid of the nup-u-wiwi the French 
 than all the nup-u-tongas, all the whalers and traders in the 
 Pacific. These were our fellow-countrymen ; we had a common 
 language, and many common sympathies, and except when 
 under strong prejudices, false impressions, or great excite- 
 ment, we found even the worst of them to be reasonable men.
 
 210 NUP-TJ-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 Besides, the island trade was improving, a better class of men 
 were investing their capital in it, and from various causes it 
 appeared likely to be accompanied with more advantages and 
 fewer drawbacks to the work of the mission than it had 
 formerly been. 
 
 Occasionally, too, the power of the Gospel, was seen to operate 
 effectually among some of those characters; the prayers of 
 God-fearing mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, no doubt, 
 followed them to the islands, where the Gospel unexpectedly 
 met them, and brought down blessings, when more direct 
 home influences could not reach them. We had one pleasing 
 case of this kind, that of George Rodburn, with which I shall 
 conclude this chapter. George's first appearance at our station 
 was anything but encouraging to us. One Sabbath day, as we 
 were coming out of church, the second year of our residence 
 on Aneityum, a boat was seen coming in to our little harbour, 
 steered by a white man, and rowed by a native crew. The 
 cargo consisted of pots, pans, and buckets, boxes, bags, and 
 bundles, an axe, a handsaw, and some miscellaneous articles. 
 This was George Rodburn and his belongings. The reason 
 why he had come to reside so near us was this. Before we 
 settled on the island several seamen connected with the sandal- 
 wood trade had bought young women from their relations or 
 the chief of the tribe and taken them away to the other 
 islands. Some of the young women belonged to our district. 
 According to the recognised native custom, if a man bought 
 and paid for a woman, she became out-and-out his property. 
 Her relations had no more claim upon her. If she had not 
 been paid for, her friends could have demanded her back. One 
 of these young women, called Morana, had been sold to a nup- 
 u-tonga, and taken away before our arrival on the island, but
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 211 
 
 he had left the islands, and before doing so, had sold Morana 
 to George Rodburn, and she was now his propeity. When he 
 came to Aneityum he bought a small piece of land from an 
 uncle of Morana's, close beside our station. Those men, when 
 a number of them were together, were generally bouncing and 
 troublesome, but when there was only one or two of them they 
 were always quiet and easily controlled, and liked to settle 
 down near a missionary, not for the sake of his religion, but 
 for the sake of his protection. They felt safe in the neigh- 
 bourhood of his dwelling. George Rodburn was no exception 
 to his class ; he was a tall, well-made Englishman, about forty 
 years of age, rather pale, and not very robust, though in 
 general he enjoyed good health. He got a house erected a 
 little way off the beach, just in front of my boat harbour, and 
 we found him a very quiet inoffensive, obliging neighbour. 
 He came to church to the native service, and Morana came, 
 not only to the church, but also to the morning school. I 
 found her a very capable woman. As she had been twice sold 
 to a white man, and was now according to native ideas recog- 
 nised as George's property, I advised him to get married to 
 her, so that they might live together as lawful husband and 
 wife. To this proposal they both very willingly agreed, and at 
 one of our Wednesday public prayer-meetings the marriage was 
 celebrated; and thus, after several years of a very doubtful 
 status, George " made her again an honest woman," to use an 
 expression that has found its way into the proverbial literature 
 of both north and south Britain, being quoted both by Dr. 
 Jamieson in his " Scottish Dictionary," and by Dr. Goldsmith 
 in his " Vicar of Wakefield." I found that George was a very 
 poor scholar; his original education had been very limited, 
 and when a young lad, like Robinson Crusoe, he had run away
 
 2 I 2 NUP-U-TONGA OK FOREIGNEKS. 
 
 to sea ; but as he had not enjoyed the early educational ad- 
 vantages of Defoe's hero, so he had not improved his book- 
 knowledge at sea, but had in reality lost almost completely all 
 that he had ever learned. When he came first to reside 
 beside us he knew very little beyond the letters of the alphabet. 
 I offered to give him a short lesson daily, and I began him 
 with the first primer of the English Sunday School Union. I 
 preferred those primers because the print was large and very 
 clear, and George had suffered an injury in one of his eyes, 
 and his sight was not very good, and further the books con- 
 tained nothing but texts of Scripture. On the Sabbath after- 
 noons my wife and I had always a short service in English 
 for our own edification. To this I invited George, and he 
 came regularly. After a short devotional exercise, we read 
 a portion of some approved author; at that time we were 
 reading through the " Pilgrim's Progress." As our time was 
 limited I did nothing but read a portion of it without any 
 comment, as I thought that would be most profitable to 
 George. Both Mason and Scott wrote notes to the Pilgrim, 
 and it is reported that on one occasion Mason found a plain 
 man reading his edition of the Pilgrim, and asked him if he 
 understood what he was reading. " Oh yes," said the man, 
 " I understand the Pilgrim, and I hope soon to be able to 
 understand your notes also." I once had an experience of 
 the same kind myself. When we lived in New Zealand we 
 had a young girl of about fourteen years of age as a servant. 
 In the course of our reading the Old Testament at family 
 worship, when I came round to Genesis, I thought that in- 
 stead of reading the Scriptures alone, I would read only half 
 a chapter, and read along with that Scott's commentary on 
 the portion read at morning worship. About a week after I
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 213 
 
 began this practice, my wife one day asked the young girl 
 if she understood what I read at worship. " Oh yes," said 
 the girl, "I understand the Bible, but I do not understand 
 the explanation." On hearing of this result I discontinued 
 the reading of Scott's Commentary, and read only the Bible. 
 In like manner, when George attended our meeting I never 
 read anything but the Scripture and the text of Bunyan ; but 
 these seemed to impress George deeply. I often saw the tears 
 trickling down his cheeks, and when he left the room, he was 
 so overcome by his feelings that he could not speak. After he 
 could read with ease the three primers of the Sunday School 
 Union, I got him a New Testament in large print, and as, on 
 account of other duties, I could not spare time on week days 
 for his lesson, I gave him a weekly lesson, which I heard on 
 Sabbath. I made him prepare a chapter of John's Gospel, 
 which he read to me before we commenced our service on 
 Sabbath. In this way he mastered the whole of that Gospel. 
 And I had reason to believe that the Spirit of God made those 
 simple means effectual for his conversion. At the end of four 
 years, a severe epidemic of influenza passed over the island. 
 George caught the disease, and succumbed under it. My wife 
 and I had to accompany the John Williams on a four weeks' 
 voyage round the islands, to assist in the settlement of Mr. and 
 Mrs. G. N. Gordon on Eromanga, On our return home we 
 found that George was dead, but before we left home she had 
 supplied him with all needful medical comforts, and Williamu 
 and the other natives, for he was well liked, had ministered 
 very faithfully to his wants, had read the Scriptures to him, 
 and prayed regularly with him, and at last laid him decently 
 in his grave. 
 
 If I might be allowed a short digression here, I would say,
 
 214 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 it appears to me, that the much contested question of the 
 Bible in common or Board schools might be easily settled on 
 such lines as I followed with George Rodburn. Religious 
 instruction in schools, and the Bible in schools, may easily be 
 made quite distinct questions. Religious instruction in schools 
 generally means denominational teaching. But the Bible in 
 schools may easily be kept quite apart from denominational 
 religious teaching. All our Bible societies circulate the Bible 
 without note or comment. So I would have the Bible read 
 in schools, bvit always without either note or comment. Our 
 authorised version is a national, not a denominational book ; it 
 has nothing sectarian in it. In England and Ireland the 
 Bible is part of the common law of the land. In Scotland, 
 according to Chalmers in his " Caledonia," we never had any 
 common law, nothing but statute law ; but the Bible is, as it 
 is in both England and Ireland, a distinct part of the statute 
 law of the country. It is, as such, embodied both in the 
 Westminster Confession, and in the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 Moreover, it is recognised by all our Protestant denominations 
 as the supreme authority in faith and morals. None of them 
 could or would object to the simple reading of the Bible in 
 schools ; and whenever the Romanists objected to our author- 
 ised version, I woiild give them every facility for reading the 
 Douay version of the Old Testament and the Rheims trans- 
 lation of the New. These are not equal as translations to our 
 authorised version ; but with a few exceptions they are correct 
 readings, and Dr. Chalmers has said, that the most imperfect 
 version of the Bible ever made, if honestly executed, will 
 convey a sufficient amount of knowledge to secure the salva- 
 tion of the soul; hence the reading of this version would be 
 immeasurably better than reading no Scripture at all. As
 
 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 215 
 
 for the secularists, as they recognise the Bible to be one of 
 the best and most valuable of the ancient classics, they could 
 have no reasonable objection to the simple reading of it in the 
 schools. I would, therefore, have the Bible made a part of 
 each of the six reading standards, and allow proficiency in the 
 reading of the Bible to secure grants in the same proportion 
 as anything else taught in the schools. I would have the 
 reading of the Bible but the reading only, including specially 
 the proper names, a part of Bible reading often sadly neglected. 
 I would have this reading thoroughly taught in schools ; let 
 the children learn also to repeat the books, to know the 
 chapters and verses, and to find the places with ease and 
 readiness, thus giving children full ability to read and examine 
 the Bible easily. I would leave it to the Spirit of God to 
 apply the truths of the word to the hearts of the readers, 
 according, as Dr. Williams says, to " the equity of the Divine 
 government, and the sovereignty of Divine grace," and I 
 would have no fear of the result ; religion and morality would 
 nourish, and sectarian strife about denominational teaching 
 would to a certainty come to an end. 
 
 But to return from this digression, and come back to 
 George and Morana. They had two children, both of them 
 girls, but the eldest died before her father. The younger one 
 grew up to womanhood, was taught, when old enough to 
 enter it, in Mrs. Inglis's boarding or industrial school for 
 girls, and before we left the island was married to one of the 
 best and cleverest of our young men. As they lived close 
 beside us, and as her husband gave her every encouragement, 
 Morana attended all my classes, and also all Mrs. Inglis's, 
 became a good scholar, and willingly made herself generally 
 useful. While George lived she learned to read the Aneit-
 
 216 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 yumese New Testament much faster than he learned the 
 English. As a native woman she was much cleverer than he 
 was for a white man, although he was a man of average 
 capacity. She was at times impatient with him, on account 
 of his slowness in acquiring the Aneityumese language, and 
 would say to him, " Why cannot you learn the Aneityumese 
 as fast as Misi (the missionary) ? " " Oh, Misi," George would 
 say, " Misi is a learned man, and I am not a scholar, and can 
 never learn your language as fast as he can do." And George 
 was right ; a man who has received a professional education, 
 and learned one or more foreign languages, will, as a general 
 rule, learn any of those native tongues much faster than a 
 man who knows no language but his own. George was often 
 making mistakes, both when he was speaking the language 
 himself and when he was hearing it spoken by others, some 
 of them rather amusing. On one occasion Setefano, one of 
 our young men, came to my wife and said, "Misi, I would 
 like very much to learn English, if you would teach me." 
 " Oh," said she, " I will be very glad to teach you, but you 
 know it is a very difficult thing to learn English ; why do you 
 wish to learn English?" "Oh," he said, "to be able to 
 speak to George ; he speaks the Aneityumese so badly, that 
 the people will be angry with him. As you know, he always 
 says dhving, when he should say merit. When he wants a 
 man to ivork for him, he says he wants a man that he may eat 
 him ! " Now this language, to men who had been all canni- 
 bals, and were now thoroughly ashamed of the practice, was 
 the reverse of complimentary. On another occasion George 
 came to me in a great rage, on account of the way in which 
 the natives had been speaking to him, and of him. He had 
 taken my boat to the other station, and brought her back with
 
 KUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 21 7 
 
 a native crew ; but the natives, he said, had been making fun 
 of him all the way back ; they had been calling him a cat, and 
 had repeatedly said that he was a poosie. I was surprised 
 at this, because I had supplied him with half a dozen of our 
 best young men ; but I called in two or three of them, and 
 asked them what they had been saying to George, and if they 
 had been calling him a poosie. The lads looked amazed ; they 
 could remember nothing improper that they had said. At 
 last one of them opened his eyes wide, and laughed, and said 
 to me, " I think I know now how it happened. The wind was 
 ahead, and we had to tack a good many times. George was 
 steering, but I had charge of the sail. As often as we tacked 
 and had to turn the sail, I called out to those in the cent, e 
 of the boat atpuse (stoop down), that the sail might not strike 
 their heads. George had not understood the word, and as we 
 were talking and laughing he must have thought we were 
 calling him a poosie." I explained to him these words and he 
 was satisfied ; but he evidently felt a good deal ashamed of 
 the mistake that he had made. 
 
 After his death, in due time, Morana, who was still a young 
 woman, was again married, but this time to a native, to Pitello, 
 one of the best of our teachers. We moved our teachers about, 
 very much as the "VVesleyans do their preachers, but, wher- 
 ever they were located, Morana proved herself to be a power 
 for good among the women. During her second marriage, 
 Morana, quite unconsciously to herself, solved a question a 
 good deal talked about in those seas, especially among a class 
 of men who professed to be well acquainted with science and 
 philosophy. The view held by many was, that if a native 
 woman lived with a white ED an, and had children to him, and 
 if she afterwards was married to a native, she would have no
 
 2l8 NUP-U-TONGA OR FOREIGNERS. 
 
 children to him. Thus proving, as they held, that the blacks 
 and the whites were two distinct species, and could not propa- 
 gate families, as if they had been both only one species. But 
 Morana, as I have said, had two children to George, and both 
 of them as like him as they could be ; and to Pitello, her 
 second husband, two or more, one a very fine boy, whom T 
 distinctly remember, and who bore evidence of his paternity, 
 as distinctly as the two girls had done ; thus clearly proving, 
 as far as that case could prove it, whatever those sciolists 
 might say, that God " hath made of one blood all nations of 
 men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," and that from 
 the three sons of Noah the whole world has been peopled, as 
 they were divided in their generations, after their nations, 
 after the flood. Indeed, as I have said elsewhere, we may 
 see in the South Seas those three great divisions of mankind 
 the Hametic, the Shemetic, and the Japhetic in the Papuans, 
 in the Malay-Polynesians, and in the Europeans, as distinctly 
 marked as when Mizraim, the son of Ham, and his sons settled 
 in Egypt ; when Terah and his three sons, Abram, Nahor, and 
 Haran, dwelt in ITr of the Chaldees, or when Javan, the son 
 of Japheth, the father of the Samoans, took up his abode in the 
 Isles of Greece, or on the shores of Asia Minor, and re- 
 spectively increased, multiplied, and replenished the earth, 
 every one after his tongue, after their families, in their 
 nations. No treatise on ethnology is so clear and distinct as 
 the tenth chapter of Genesis.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 
 
 PERHAPS in nothing have the South Sea missions been more 
 characteristic than in the extent to which they have em- 
 ployed native agency. And in none of those missions has 
 this principle been more fully carried out than in the New 
 Hebrides Mission. On Aneityum every convert, as far as it 
 was practicable, was made a missionary. At both stations we 
 had a training school for preparing teachers. When our 
 arrangements were complete we had fifty teachers and their 
 wives stationed on Aneityum; and we followed out an 
 aggressive policy in regard to the other islands of the group. 
 At a very early stage of our missionary operations we sent 
 two teachers and their wives to Futuna, and the same to 
 Tanna; subsequently we occupied Aniwa with other two. 
 When missionaries were settled on Eromanga, Efat^, and 
 Nguna, we sent Aneityum teachers with them to strengthen 
 their hands and assist them. The teachers on Aneityum 
 received no salary, except an annual present of clothing to 
 the value of from ten shillings to a pound out of mission 
 boxes, sent out from home from Scotland and the colonies 
 to us, and from Nova Scotia to Dr. Geddie. The teachers on 
 the other islands received a salary of five pounds a year, out 
 of a fund raised in the colonies, which was commenced by 
 Mr. Paton in 1863, after he had raised funds for the purchase
 
 220 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 
 
 of the Day spring. For several years before we left the islands 
 there were from twenty to thirty Aneityum teachers and 
 their wives settled on the other islands. As in another place 
 I have described the work that was carried on by the teachers 
 on Aneityum, so in this chapter I shall confine myself to the 
 work that was done by our Aneityum teachers on the other 
 islands of the group. The first island to which Mr. Geddie 
 and I sent teachers was Futuna; and that we might enlist 
 the sympathy of the whole people in the enterprise, we 
 selected a teacher from each side of the island. The men 
 selected were Waihit and Yosefa; the former from Mr. 
 Geddie's side of the island, the latter from mine. Waihit 
 was a somewhat extraordinary character. In heathen times 
 he was a sacred man, a great disease maker, and a furious 
 savage; and hence a man of great influence among his 
 countrymen. He became one of the first converts to Chris- 
 tianity. No sooner was he converted himself, than he sought, 
 with all the energy of his character, to bring his fellow- 
 countrymen out of the darkness of heathenism into the blessed 
 light of the Gospel. Mr. Geddie was of opinion that the first 
 great impression in favour of the Gospel on Aneityum was 
 made chiefly by Waihit. He evinced the same earnestness 
 and decision of character on Futuna. He exposed himself 
 to considerable danger by his fidelity. The natives of Futuna 
 had a cruel and barbarous practice when a scarcity of food 
 occurred, which I suppose would be often once a year, before 
 the bread-fruit season came in. They killed a man, as a 
 sacrifice to propitiate their deities and secure an abundant 
 harvest of bread-fruit. The chiefs assembled, fixed upon the 
 individual, and immediately thereafter killed him. When 
 Waihit heard of their intentions, he remonstrated with them
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 221 
 
 to the utmost of his power, but it was of no avail ; they were 
 only angry with him, and several who professed themselves 
 favourable to Christianity left off coming near him. As one 
 of these poor victims had been killed only a short time before, 
 we had sent our boat there to visit the teachers. Our natives 
 returned quite shocked with the horrid deed, and apparently 
 more impressed than ever with the excellence of the GospeL 
 The Aneityumese had been cannibals, but they had never 
 offered up human sacrifices. Waihit had also severely re- 
 proved some natives of Aneityum, living on Futuna,- for their 
 wicked conduct generally. One of them was so angry at him 
 for this, that he advised the natives to kill Waihit. When 
 he heard that his life was threatened, he firmly replied, " Oh, 
 I am not afraid \ they may kill my body, but they cannot 
 touch my soul." 
 
 Yosefa, the other teacher, who was from my side of the 
 island, was a young man of high promise ; he was one of 
 eight or ten young men whom the Samoan teachers attracted 
 to the mission before the arrival of the missionaries, Messrs. 
 Powell, Geddie, and Archibald, in 1848; and who received 
 Samoanised scriptural or other names, such as Williamu, 
 Seremona, Yosefa, Filipo, Hosia, Lazarus, Sabataia, Paulo, 
 Setefano, &c. ; a practice we soon discontinued as tending to 
 barbarise the language and destroy its idiomatic charac- 
 teristics. Several of them went and stayed, for longer or 
 shorter periods, with Mr. Geddie, to learn the Word of God ; 
 and they all joined my first classes. Subsequently they all 
 became teachers, and, as a whole, their character and history 
 continued very satisfactory. Our first converts were always 
 our best. They joined us from conviction. Intellectually and 
 morally they were the best men ; and they were the longest
 
 222 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHEKS. 
 
 under instruction : their number being limited at first, the 
 missionaries had more time to instruct them than they had 
 afterwards. But to return to Yosefa. There was something 
 of romance in his subsequent history. Mr. Geddie and I 
 had talked of sending teachers to Futuna, but nothing was 
 definitely agreed upon till the arrival of the John Williams, 
 and we had consulted the deputation on board, when a 
 decision was at once come to. Yosefa had been engaged to 
 a young woman, and it was agreed that they must be married 
 there and then. It was the second year of our residence on 
 Aneityum ; our new church was only being erected, and the 
 temporary building in which we were worshipping was far too 
 small for the company. It was the first marriage that I per- 
 formed on Aneityum ; it was conducted with great publicity ; 
 it was performed on the shore, in front of the mission premises, 
 and in presence of a great concourse of natives. Mr. Geddie, 
 the Samoan brethren, Messrs. Murray and Sunderland, Captain 
 Morgan, and a number of the men from the mission ship 
 were all present. As soon as the marriage was over the 
 young couple were hurried into the boat, put on board the 
 John Williams, and the next morning they were landed on 
 Futuna. This marriage trip was a rough voyage of one night 
 between Aneityum and Futuna, their honeymoon was a full 
 month spent in a land of strangers, all savages. 
 
 Shortly after the landing of our teachers, H.M.S. Herald, 
 Captain Denham, spent about a week making surveys of the 
 coast of Futuna. Captain Denham took a deep interest in 
 missions ; and to strengthen our infant cause on that island, 
 he made particular inquiries after our teachers, had them on 
 board, and made it appear to the natives as if to inquire after 
 and see the teachers had been the principal object of his visit.
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 223 
 
 Waihit and Yosefa went on prosecuting their mission work 
 for about eighteen months, when we sent Pita, one of our 
 Samoan teachers, who had formerly lived as a teacher on 
 Tanna, with a strong select crew in our best boat to visit our 
 teachers on Futuna and Tanna. On their return we learned 
 that, ten days before they reached Futuna, a white man who 
 lived there had left Futuna for Aneityum, and that Yosefa 
 and two other natives of our island, besides some natives 
 of Futuna, had accompanied him in his boat. As the Joltn 
 Williams had not called at Futuna, Yosefa was going over 
 to Aneityum to obtain supplies. Pita and the natives found 
 that the boat had not been heard of either at Tanna or Ero- 
 manga. The only conclusion, therefore, that we could draw 
 was, that, as the boat had not come to Aneityum, it must 
 have gone down at sea, being probably upset in a squall, and 
 all in her had perished. We also learned from them that two 
 canoes had been lost about the same time, one coming from 
 Futuna to Aneityum, and the other going from Aneityum to 
 Tanna. But, after being regarded as lost for six months, 
 Yosefa, the white man, and all the boat's crew found their way 
 back to Futuna, having had a most singular escape. They 
 had nearly reached Aneityum, when a strong south-east wind 
 arose, and they could neither make Aneityum nor Tanna. 
 There was nothing then left them but to let the boat drift 
 before the wind. Most providentially the white man, to 
 whom the boat belonged, was a skilful seaman. He tied all 
 the oars in a bundle, and fastening one rope in the middle 
 of the oars, and another to each of the ends, and making all 
 three fast to the bow of the boat, he threw the oars into the 
 sea. The oars thus fastened, kept the head of the boat to the 
 wind, and served also to break the waves, that might other-
 
 224 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 
 
 wise Lave 'swept over and swamped the boat. In this way, 
 with little or no food but a few uncooked yams, they lay-to 
 and drifted before the wind for five days. They then made 
 for and reached New Caledonia, a distance of nearly two 
 hundred miles from Futuna. They landed at Balad, near the 
 north end of that island. This was the harbour at which 
 Captain Cook chiefly lay, when he discovered that island in 
 1778, and took possession of it in the name of His Britannic 
 Majesty. They afterwards sailed along the north-east side of 
 New Caledonia, till they reached the Isle of Pines, a distance 
 of about a hundred and fifty miles. They were there hos- 
 pitably received by an English family, Mr. and Mrs. Under- 
 wood, who had formerly lived on Aneityum. They all remained 
 there for about four or five months, till a trading vessel called 
 at the Isle of Pines, the captain of which gave them a free 
 passage, and landed them all safely on Futuna. We could 
 not regard that event otherwise than as truly providential. 
 It made a favourable and a deep impression on the natives of 
 Aneityum. It strengthened their faith in God. Such an 
 escape was never known in the history of these islands in the 
 memory of living man, and even tradition had never recorded 
 any similar deliverance. 
 
 Shortly after the settlement of the teachers on Futuna, the 
 island which Dr. Gunn now occupies, we settled two Aneityum 
 teachers and their wives on Tanna, at the station presently 
 occupied by Rev. "William Watt and his wife. The one teacher, 
 Talip, from my side of the island; the other, Yaufati, from 
 Mr. Geddie's side. They were subsequently joined by others ; 
 they were all well received, and prepared the field for the 
 settlement of the Rev. J. W. Mathieson and his wife, whose 
 health failed them, and who both sunk into an early grave.
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 225 
 
 Some years later, in 1858, Mr. Geddie accompanied the John 
 Williams as far as Eromanga, and settled two teachers on 
 Aniwa, the island on which Mr. and Mrs. Paton have laboured 
 so successfully, and of which labours, when last at home, Mr. 
 Paton gave so many thrilling accounts, and stirred the hearts 
 of so many audiences by the exciting accounts of the digging 
 of his well, and other telling incidents of mission life and 
 work. The names of the two teachers were Navallak from 
 Umej, on Mr. Geddie's side of the island, and Nemeyin from 
 Ijasis, on my side. When the John Knox was at Aniwa in 
 December of that year, all things were going on comfortably ; 
 but when she visited the island in May of next year, it was 
 found that Nemeyin had been killed a few weeks before, and 
 that Navallak had barely escaped with his life. After a 
 careful investigation the facts of the case, as near as we could 
 ascertain them, appeared to be these : Some thirty years 
 before, if not more, a canoe had left Aniwa for Aneityum. This 
 canoe carried Naparau, the principal chief of Aniwa, and six 
 or eight of his people. The object of the voyage was to pay a 
 visit to Naumi, the Natimarith of Aneityo, the highest chief 
 on my side of the island, between whom and Naparau there 
 existed a league of hospitality. Instead of getting ashore at 
 Ithumu, the place where Naumi lived, the wind carried the 
 canoe five or six miles farther to the east, to a place called 
 Ingarei, the chief of which land had no connection with the 
 people of Aniwa. As soon as the canoe had escaped from the 
 rolling waves of the Pacific, and was got safely within the 
 snug little harbour of Ingarei, Naparau and his fellow- 
 voyagers were attacked by the people of Ingarei and Ijasis, 
 and were all killed and feasted on, except two who plunged 
 into the sea and swam for about three miles, till they reached
 
 226 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHEES. 
 
 a huge rock that rises above the waves near the shore, at a 
 place called Ahaij. They climbed up on this rock, and lay 
 concealed all day. In those days iron axes were unknown on 
 Aneityum, and canoes were very scarce. The few that were 
 made were hollowed out of trees with great labour by means 
 of stone adzes, and were as rude, rough, and shapeless as any 
 antiquarian could desire. During the day, however, they saw 
 one man fishing in a canoe. They watched him narrowly, and 
 carefully observed the spot where he drew up his canoe on the 
 beach. At night, when all was quiet, they swam ashore ; one 
 of them climbed a cocoa-nut tree, and pulled a few cocoa-nuts 
 to satisfy hunger ; they plaited some cocoa-nut leaves to use as 
 a sail. They then launched the canoe, and as the trade wind 
 was blowing fair, they reached their own island without much 
 difficulty. Great was the grief, and loud were the lamenta- 
 tions of the people of Aniwa, when they heard that Naparau 
 and his followers were killed ; and measures were at once 
 adopted to insure revenge for his death. That it might not 
 be forgotten, a piece of ground was marked off, and pieces 
 of wood were stuck into the earth ; and from that year 
 onward, as often as these rotted they were renewed, to per- 
 petuate the remembrance of the event. Had we known 
 anything of this, we should never have sent to them a teacher 
 from Ijasis; for among savage tribes revenge is surpassingly 
 sweet. When we lived among the natives of New Zealand, 
 and were in daily dread of Rangihaeata and the rebel Maories, 
 two native women tried to comfort my wife one day, by 
 administering to her the sweetest cup of consolation they 
 could think of, " Oh, you need not be afraid," they said, "for 
 if they kill you, your countrymen will revenge your death ; but 
 if they kill us, we have nobody able to take revenge." After
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 22; 
 
 the teachers were settled, some of the people of Aniwa began to 
 inquire from what part of Aneityum they came. The teachers 
 seem to have had some misgivings, for they evaded the question. 
 But an Aneityum woman who was married to an Aniwa man in- 
 advertently told an Aniwa chief the name of the district from 
 which Nemeyin came. The chief shrugged his shoulders and 
 said very significantly yiali, yes. Nemeyin felt very uneasy 
 about this disclosure, but nothing further took place at that 
 time. As the Aniwa people had received the teachers from 
 us, they felt bound not to injure them. But there were two 
 Tanna men living on the island, and married to Aniwa women. 
 The wife and child of one of these men died. The teachers 
 were accused of causing their death by witchcraft, and a plot 
 was laid to kill them. And, although the Aniwa people would 
 not kill the teachers themselves, they felt no objections, but 
 were quite well pleased, that their revenge should be taken by 
 the Tannese. Accordingly, on a Sabbath-day, in the end of 
 April of that year, 1859, when the teachers were returning 
 from a place at which they had been conducting worship with 
 the people, they were waylaid and clubbed by those two 
 infuriated Tannese. Nemeyin was killed dead on the spot, and 
 Navallak was knocked down and rendered insensible. But 
 on some women coming up, the two men ran off. They soon 
 after left Aniwa and went to Tanna, where one of them was 
 killed in a battle. Since then Aniwa has contained a martyr's 
 grave. But for the sake of the Gospel, Nemeyin would never 
 have gone to that island. He lost his life for the sake of 
 Christ. When the John Knox reached Aniwa a few weeks 
 thereafter, our natives were extremely grieved to find that 
 the teachers had been so barbarously treated. Nohoat, the 
 principal chief of Aneityum, was with them, and his whole
 
 228 NATIVE AGENCY ANE1TYUMESE TEACHERS. 
 
 heart was moved. He spoke so long and so loud to the people 
 of Aniwa on the wickedness of their conduct, that when he 
 returned to the vessel he was quite hoarse and exhausted. 
 The exertion had evidently been too much for his strength, as 
 he became ill that very night, and never again recovered, but 
 died about a month afterwards. After the return of the John 
 Knox, we sent over a deputation of our chiefs to examine into 
 the case. At the head of them was Viali, the son and 
 successor of Naumi, between whom and the people of Aniwa 
 the old league of hospitality and friendship still existed. 
 Viali and his people had the privilege of a harbour on Aniwa. 
 The Aniwa chiefs said that they had no ill-will to the teachers, 
 that the debt of revenge was now paid, that the memorial 
 sticks were destroyed, and that no one else would be injured, 
 and that they wished the teachers to live among them. On 
 their return Mr. Geddie and I again consulted on this matter. 
 We felt exceedingly reluctant to abandon the island, and we 
 felt equally unwilling to imperil human life. But as Nalmai, 
 an influential man in Viali's district, and his wife, were both 
 willing to go to Aniwa, we sent them to occupy Nemeyin's 
 place, and the subsequent history of the island has shown that, 
 in this instance, as often in medical cases, a bold practice was 
 a safe one. 
 
 The history of our native agency, as regards other islands, 
 may be divided into two parts; from 1853 to 1862, and from 
 1864 till the present time. I have briefly sketched the 
 initiatory steps taken in this work, I shall now, but still more 
 briefly, refer to its subsequent history. After the murder of 
 the Rev. G. N. Gordon and his wife on Eromanga, in 1861, 
 and the breaking up of the Tanna Mission in 1862, nearly 
 the whole of the New Hebrides Mission was driven back on
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 229 
 
 Aneityum; and on the arrival of the Dai/spring in 1864, we 
 had to commence the mission anew, under far more depressing 
 circumstances than those under which we had commenced it 
 at first. But I cannot go into details. Aneityum was the only 
 island from which we could draw our teachers ; and here our 
 choice was limited. After that, as the result of successive 
 epidemics of measles, diphtheria, hooping-cough, influenza, &c., 
 the population of Aneityum had been reduced by one-half, and 
 our teachers had borne their full share of all those calamities. 
 After these things, there was for several years, as might 
 naturally have been expected, a great reluctance on the part 
 of the Aneityumese to go forth as teachers to the surrounding 
 islands. Happily in time that feeling passed away. But 
 there were other difficulties which our diminished population 
 more or less intensified. It was not every man, however well 
 qualified in other respects, that was eligible to be a teacher, 
 that would have been accepted, or at least been of any service 
 on heathen islands. Strange as it may appear, it was only 
 members of aristocratic families, chiefs, or near relations of 
 chiefs, that carried any influence on heathen islands. As I 
 have said elsewhere, the natives, even the most heathen 
 natives, are intensely human ; rank or position are as much 
 worshipped by them as by us. 
 
 Some time ago, at a meeting of the London City Mission, 
 the late Lord Shaftesbury said that, in the most radical 
 districts of the metropolis, the people would rather receive a 
 visit from a lord than from a labourer ; because they thought 
 that the former had more in his power to benefit their temporal 
 interest than the latter. Human nature is essentially the 
 same in all ages and in all parts of the world. The argument 
 of the loaves and the fishes, or the temporal blessings that
 
 230 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACH EKS. 
 
 accompany or flow from Christianity, the rudest savage can 
 in some measure soon understand. Hence, in addition to 
 some intuitive notions on the subject, the heathen soon 
 observed that, as often as the Dayspring visited their island, 
 it was the teachers who were chiefs that always received the 
 largest presents of food and property from their friends on 
 Aneityum ; and on account of these, as well as of their high 
 ancestry, they were disposed to treat them with respect. The 
 value of the spiritual blessings secured by the Gospel is the very 
 last idea connected with Christianity which the heathen may 
 we not add the human mind wakens up to comprehend. 
 
 Moreover, we did not find it advisable to send young people 
 as teachers ; men in middle life carried most influence, and 
 proved most efficient. Besides this, some very suitable men 
 had unsuitable wives, or large families, whom they could 
 neither leave nor take with them. Some men had no wives, 
 and could not get them, because every marriageable woman was 
 married, and we found it inexpedient to send unmarried men. 
 
 It will be seen that, in the circumstances, our choice of 
 native agency was very limited, and that from one cause or 
 another a large proportion of our best men were necessarily shut 
 out from this department of missionary labour, and hence our 
 teachers on the heathen islands, though in general among our 
 best men, were by no means, as a whole, among our best 
 scholars. They could all read the Scriptures with tolerable 
 fluency, and could conduct religious services in an edifying 
 manner, but some of them could not write at all, and others of 
 them very imperfectly. 
 
 I am afraid that there is a false impression abroad in many 
 minds with respect to our native teachers. When people hear 
 of a valuable and an efficient native agency, they are apt to
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 2^1 
 
 J 
 
 think of such men as Tigo Soga, Narayin Sheshadri, or 
 Rajahgopaul, men who received a regular course of university 
 education in this country; whereas the most of our native 
 teachers could hardly pass an examination in the first three 
 standards. The only book in which they would make a good 
 appearance at all would be the Bible. But you cannot expect 
 to command a high class agency for five pounds a year. 
 
 It may be asked by some, What is the special work which 
 our teachers on those heathen islands do ? From the name 
 teachers being given to them, it might naturally be inferred 
 by most people that teaching was their principal work, and 
 that each one of them had charge of a school. This was the 
 case on Aneityum, where nearly the whole education of the 
 island was carried on by native teachers, under the direction 
 of the missionaries. The same men who had been teachers on 
 Aneityum or elsewhere still retained the name of teachers 
 when they went to heathen islands, although pioneer, or some 
 such word, would have better indicated their position. The 
 first thing they had to do was to live among the people, and 
 acquire a knowledge of their language. For a considerable 
 time it was by their life rather than by any direct teaching 
 that they exhibited Christianity to the heathen. As soon as 
 they landed among them they kept the Sabbath : they wor- 
 shipped God morning and evening : they were peaceable, 
 industrious, well-behaved men and women. A few of the 
 heathen were generally more or less favourable to them, and 
 as a general rule they, sooner or later, worked their way to 
 positions of some influence. The teachers, as they best can, 
 conduct services at their respective stations, and, as soon 
 as the missionary can supply them with books, education 
 begins. Moreover, they are like a bodyguard to the missionary :
 
 232 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 
 
 in times of danger they protect him, his wife, his family, and 
 his all. They are his eyes, his ears, his feet, and his hands : 
 they inform him of what is going on; they carry out his 
 suggestions and his plans ; they supply him with the only 
 skilled labour beyond his own that can be obtained; they 
 build his house and man his boat, and without them, in the 
 midst of heathenism, he would often be very helpless indeed. 
 
 The teachers are an humble and only a subsidiary agency ; 
 and although, chiefly owing to the diversity of languages, they 
 can do little evangelistic work, especially in the first stages 
 of any mission, yet, in their own place, they are often very 
 valuable assistants to the missionary. As a whole, they 
 are an active, diligent, reliable, courageous, consistent, and 
 workable body of men ; and while, being so limited in their 
 attainments, and so crippled by their surroundings and their 
 conditions, they have not been able to do much by direct 
 teaching, they have exhibited a considerable amount of it in 
 their lives, a mode of teaching that can never be mistaken. 
 As I have already said, up to the time of our leaving the 
 islands in 1877, there were generally from twenty to thirty 
 Aneityumese teachers and their wives on the other islands. 
 
 Aneityum supplied almost all the new missionaries with the 
 needed native help, for house-building and other work, and 
 male cooks and female nurses for their wives, and all that the 
 Americans call "helps." We also supplied the Dayspring all 
 the year round with six or eight of a boat's crew, and these all 
 were always more or less satisfactory : although, as might 
 have been expected, when the missionary knew no Aneityumese, 
 and the teachers knew no English, and they were both speaking 
 to each other in a third language, of which both were at first 
 all but completely ignorant, misunderstandings were often
 
 NATIVE AGENCY ANEITYUMESE TEACHERS. 233 
 
 occurring on both sides from no fault on either ; all the more, 
 as the missionary was totally unacquainted with the manners 
 and customs of the natives, and their modes of thinking. 
 Even my excellent colleague, Dr. Geddie, with all his singular 
 aptitude for understanding and managing natives, was often 
 singularly annoyed and perplexed with his Samoan teachers. 
 Our eight years' residence in New Zealand, and our extensive 
 acquaintance with the Maoris, gave us an advantage in this 
 respect, which no other missionary in the New Hebrides ever 
 enjoyed, and reduced to a minimum our difficulties on that 
 head. At first all the native agency was supplied from Aneit- 
 yum, but latterly Tanna, Aniwa, Bromanga, Efate, and Nguna 
 have not only been supplying themselves for the most part, 
 but also affording native help to the newly opened stations to 
 the north ; and their modes of operation and their experience 
 are much the same as ours was on Aneityum, and the pro- 
 cesses will go on, and be repeated with varying success, till 
 the whole group shall be evangelised. That is our aim, and 
 by God's blessing resting on our efforts, we assuredly calculate 
 on success.
 
 CHAPTER XXVJ. 
 
 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN - TEACHERS. 
 
 IN treating of native agency in the New Hebrides an im- 
 portant place must be allowed for Rarotongan and Samoan 
 teachers. It was our brethren of the Hervey and Samoan 
 missions that opened up the New Hebrides group. John 
 Williams and Mr. Harris laid down their lives in their first 
 attempt to carry the Gospel to the "barbarous people" of 
 Eromanga. Messrs. Heath, Murray, and others, with noble 
 promptitude, stepped at once into the breach. I have else- 
 where detailed Mr. Murray's courageous but cautious efforts 
 to gain a footing on Aneityum. Year after year, for more 
 than twenty long years, those brethren, with ungrudging spirit, 
 sent forth native teachers, male and female, to the New 
 Hebrides, to the number of seventy or eighty ; the very flower 
 of their islands, physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritu- 
 ally, fully equipped with everything necessary to secure success; 
 but unfortunately, from no fault of theirs, they were weak 
 in one point, and that to a great extent defeated the whole 
 scheme. Those natives could not stand the climate. The 
 missionaries, though very naturally, miscalculated. Time and 
 experience have been needed to correct this mistake. In the 
 Eastern Islands the climate was healthy : the natives were all 
 acclimatised. The same conditions existed in the Loyalty 
 Islands, hence the teachers enjoyed good health there, as well
 
 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 235 
 
 as on their own islands, and they were successful in their 
 labours. But in every island in the New Hebrides they 
 suffered so much from fever and ague that it was found to 
 be hopeless to continue their services. Several of them were 
 killed by the natives ; a number of them succumbed to the 
 climate and died ; but the majority had either to be removed 
 to their own islands, or else found their way, chiefly by trading 
 vessels, from the New Hebrides to the Loyalty Islands, 
 where they recovered their health and their usefulness. 
 
 In the New Hebrides, it was only on Aneityum where the 
 Rarotongan and Samoan teachers were really a success ; because 
 it was only there that they enjoyed a fair measure of health. 
 There they were living beside the mission families, had their 
 health attended to, and had medicine and medical comforts 
 supplied to them when required, and hence disease was warded 
 off and life preserved. During the first eight years that we 
 were on Aneityum, Dr. Geddie and I had always eight Samoans 
 or Rarotongans under our charge ; for some years we had 
 twelve, besides children. With one or two exceptions these all 
 enjoyed a fair measure of health, but on all the other islands 
 where any teachers were placed, their health was every now 
 and again breaking down, and the result of their labours was 
 next to nothing. In all those islands one of the first things 
 to be attended to in connection with native agency is sanita- 
 tion, or the conditions necessary for securing health. In the 
 New Guinea mission the missionaries have had similar diffi- 
 culties to contend with that we have had. 
 
 The teachers from the Eastern Islands were a valuable 
 agency. They largely bridged over the gulf between the 
 missionaries and our own natives. Their knowledge of 
 skilled native labour was much greater than that of the
 
 236 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 
 
 Aneityumese. In planting, cooking, and all kinds of mechan- 
 ical skill, they greatly excelled our natives, while they were 
 greatly below European ; and yet they were not so high but 
 that the Aneityumese could successfully imitate them, and 
 in this way they greatly assisted in promoting the civilisa- 
 tion of the natives. In the manufacture of mats, in the 
 plaiting of native garments, in the making of canoes, in the 
 burning of lime, in the building of houses, in cultivating 
 plantations, in the whole range of the arts, in all the processes 
 of education, in all the arrangements for public worship, they 
 were always sufficiently ahead of the natives to take the lead 
 and set a satisfactory example, and in this way they were 
 always a valuable help to the missionaries. They were expert 
 in teaching the natives what they themselves knew, and in 
 acquiring a knowledge of what they themselves did not know 
 they were adepts in learning the natives in all the arts 
 which they themselves understood, and displayed an aptitude 
 in acquiring a knowledge of the arts practised by Europeans. 
 They were a fine, tall, robust, stalwart race, and commanded 
 respect from their superior physical appearance. They were 
 in those seas a race evidently born to rule, and hence Canaan 
 was their servant. 
 
 But instead of dilating on the general character of those 
 teachers, I shall confine myself to a brief account of two of 
 them, Amosa and Pita, whom I had under my charge for 
 about seven years each, and who I have reason to believe were 
 fair average specimens of the whole class. Amosa (Amos) 
 and his wife were a very efficient couple. They were trained 
 up under the late Rev. Dr. Nisbet and his wife. Amosa was 
 an excellent carpenter, both for native and European work- 
 manship. In erecting our mission premises, in building
 
 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 237 
 
 churches, in fitting up the Teacher's Institution, I found 
 Amosa to be a valuable help. With axe and hammer, with 
 saw and plane, with mallet and chisel, with gimlet, augur, 
 and screw-driver, with every kind of common carpenter's tools, 
 his were skilful and active hands; and with every kind of 
 skilled native work he was equally at home. He was a great 
 help in the making of doors, presses, sofas, bedsteads, tables, 
 and all kinds of plain furniture ; he was also a well skilled 
 boatman.* Among the gifts granted by the Holy Spirit to 
 the primitive Church were Helps and Governments; Amosa 
 and his wife both possessed in an eminent degree the faculty 
 of government. They could rule the natives without oppress- 
 ing them. Like the missionaries they never interfered with 
 the civil power of the chiefs. But like the missionaries, in 
 addition to a general superintendence, and the exercise of 
 moral influence, they kept a boarding-school for the benefit of 
 the more advanced and the more promising of the young 
 people in their district. Amosa had generally six or eight of 
 the best young men whom he trained himself, and his wife had 
 five or six of the best young women under her special instruc 
 tion. In this way they drew out the industry and developed 
 the skill of the young people ; they dug the ground, and they 
 planted it, and had always abundance of food for the natives 
 living on their premises; hence the young people were con- 
 
 * In those primeval days of mission work the missionaries had not only 
 to build their own houses, but also to manipulate the most important 
 articles of furniture, with which their houses had to be replenished. 
 At that time there was no Dayspring making biennial visits to the 
 colonies, and no steamers making bi-monthly visits to the islands, and 
 supplying all the wants of the missionaries, even before they occur, so 
 that, as compared with those days, the present is almost like playing at 
 missions, instead of going at them in dead earnest.
 
 238 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 
 
 tented, happy, and genial : they were thus able not only to 
 support themselves, but, at times, also to make a present of 
 food to chiefs and influential men around them, and so were 
 helps and not burdens to the community. At Ahaij, the 
 district of which Amosa had special charge for six years, he 
 erected an excellent house for himself, two rooms of which 
 were always appropriated for the use of Mrs. Inglis and myself 
 as often as we visited the district ; but he also erected a church 
 75 feet long, in the very best style of Samoan ecclesiastical 
 architecture. In after years, when the most of those young 
 people had become teachers, they were all noted for their readi- 
 ness and aptitude in the erecting of schoolhouses and churches 
 in the districts in which they were settled. 
 
 Pita (or Peter) and his wife were in some respects totally 
 different from Amosa and his wife, though taken all round 
 they were as valuable as they were ; some would have said 
 more so. Pita had neither the mechanical skill nor the 
 organising faculty of Amosa, he was lower intellectually, but 
 he was higher morally and spiritually. He and his wife were 
 natives of Tutuila. He was one of the first three natives of 
 Tutuila that were admitted to the fellowship of the church, 
 and sat down with the Rev. A. W. Murray at the Lord's table. 
 He was a man of position : his sister was married to Pomare, 
 the heir-presumptive to the chieftainship of Tutuila, who was 
 also one of the first three converts ; he went to Tanna as a 
 teacher and died there. For some time Pita acted as a teacher 
 on Tutuila, his own island ; then he was appointed to the New 
 Hebrides, and was located at Port Resolution, on Tanna. In 
 1850, when I first visited Port Resolution in H.M.S. Havanndh, 
 Pita was at Port Resolution, although I did not see him. 
 By and by Pita's life was in danger, and he had to flee to
 
 RAKOTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 239 
 
 Aneityum. After a time he returned to Tanna, but a second 
 time he had to flee to Aneityum for his life. As at this time 
 the Tanna mission was virtually broken up, it was arranged 
 that Pita and his wife should remain on Aneityum to assist 
 us at our station. This they did for nearly six years. They 
 returned with us in the John Williams to Tutuila, when in 
 1860 we came home to this country to carry the New Tes- 
 tament through the press. We found both of them to be 
 valuable assistants. They were, and deservedly so, well liked 
 by the natives. They were exemplary, God-fearing Christians ; 
 they were quiet, kind, and obliging, and the natives would have 
 done anything for them. Pita's wife was a kind, true-hearted, 
 reliable woman. I may mention one instance of her unselfish 
 and thoughtful kindness to my wife. On one occasion I went 
 round to Dr. Geddie's station ; Pita went with me in charge 
 of my boat. We intended to return on the following day; 
 but next morning the weather had become so squally, and the 
 sea so rough, that I at once gave up all thoughts of returning 
 home that day. But as the sea was often rough on the one 
 side of the island when it was smooth on the other, my wife, 
 not knowing how it might be on Dr. Geddie's side, and not 
 very certain whether I might not attempt to return after all, 
 had arranged to keep up an outlook. About the middle of the 
 day she went down to the beach, and saw one of our young 
 men looking very earnestly at some object down the shore. 
 She called out to him, and said, " Samuel, what are you look- 
 ing at so intently ? " He said, " Misi, when the squall came 
 up 1 thought I saw the boat, but since it cleared away I do 
 not see it. I am afraid it is swamped. " " The boat swamped ! " 
 said my wife, " if so, they will all be drowned." " I hope not," 
 he said; "the missionary may, but the rest can all swim."
 
 240 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 
 
 "Oh," said my wife, " let us all run to Nohmunjap and see." 
 So off she ran. Pita's wife was also on the beach ; she took 
 hold of Mrs. Inglis's arm, and ran along with her, and all the 
 natives about joined them. As they ran along in a state of 
 high excitement, Pita's wife was overflowing with sympathy. 
 Ek aiheuc vai euc ainyak, ok Mist, &c., "Great is my pity for 
 you, Mrs. Inglis ; how my heart feels for you : my love, my 
 compassion for the missionary's wife. What will she do if Mr. 
 Inglis is drowned ? " They ran on for about a mile till they 
 reached Nohmunjap, the nearest settlement, and had the 
 satisfaction to find that it was a false alarm ; it was not the 
 boat, it was only a native canoe that the young man had seen ; 
 but it was a wreck. The outrigger was broken by the waves, 
 the canoe was upset, and the natives were thrown into the sea; 
 but as they were all expert swimmers, nearly as much at home 
 in the water as on the land, they all got safe to the shore, 
 dragging the canoe with them. My wife said oftentimes after- 
 wards, that after the excitement was over she felt quite 
 ashamed of herself, that she should selfishly have accepted to 
 herself all the sympathy of Pita's wife, and rendered none to 
 her in return ; never for a moment thinking that if Pita had been 
 drowned along with her husband, Pita's wife would have been left 
 a widow as well as herself. But I presume that neither Pita's 
 wife, nor any of the natives, ever thought it possible that Pita, 
 an expert swimmer, as all the natives were, and so near the 
 shore, could by any possibility be drowned ; but that I should 
 be drowned was, as they might think, not only possible, but 
 also highly probable, hence the sympathy not only of 'Pita's 
 wife, but of all the natives. 
 
 Pita was a man of a strong will, and at times very positive. 
 On one occasion he got the liver of a shark. Now, this was
 
 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 241 
 
 very good for making oil of : the oil made from it was better 
 than train oil ; but the liver itself was very poisonous. The 
 natives knew this, and they had often told Pita so. But he 
 had taken it into his head that he would eat the shark's liver. 
 The natives strongly opposed his doing so, and his wife im- 
 plored him with tears not to attempt doing it. " Pita," 
 she said, " if you eat this and die, what will become of me and 
 these children?" " Oh," said Pita, "sharks are not poison- 
 ous in Samoa, and why should they be so here ? " Eat it he 
 would, in spite of all remonstrance, and eat it he did. The first 
 intimation that we heard of what was going on was about one 
 o'clock on the following morning, when a gentle tap was heard 
 at our bedroom window. On asking who was there, in a low, 
 timid voice Pita's wife said, " O Misi, Pita is dying ; do come 
 and pray with us." I arose at once, and followed her. I 
 found Pita very ill ; his pulse had fallen to fifty. I gave him 
 first an emetic, and then a purgative. I had a bottle of 
 brandy in my medicine chest, and following the suggestions 
 of my medical books, I administered small doses of this daily 
 while it lasted. Next day he was a good deal better, and at 
 the end of some weeks he was all but well ; but at the end of 
 two or three years, when we left him in Tutuila with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Powell, he was not exactly himself ; he was fairly well, 
 but he had not fully recovered his wonted vigour. He lived 
 ten years after his return to Tutuila, and maintained an 
 eminently consistent Christian character. Mr. Murray has 
 supplied a very interesting sketch of Pita in his able and 
 valuable work, "Forty Years' Mission Work in Polynesia." 
 During the last ten years of Pita's life he devoted a tenth of 
 all his income to the cause of God, and in this way was quite 
 abreast of the Society that aims at securing proportionate
 
 242 RAROTONGAN AND SAMOAN TEACHERS. 
 
 giving. But I had no merit in instilling into his mind those 
 good principles. He must have been taught them by Mr. 
 Powell, or, what is not at all unlikely, he must have imbibed 
 them at his conversion from the Rev. A. W. Murray, the 
 proto-missionary of Tutuila. Mr. Powell wrote me a very 
 touching account of Pita's death. While Pita went back to 
 Tutuila, his native island, Amosa, who was a younger and 
 stronger man, was settled on Savage Island or Niwe, and 
 laboured there with much success. Both these families were 
 warm-hearted, friendly, and grateful As long as we were in 
 the islands, as often as the John Williams made a visit to the 
 west, we received from them letters and presents, articles of 
 native manufacture prepared by their own hands. One year 
 Amosa sent us a fine sofa, made by himself, the bottom and 
 back plaited with the finest native cinet, and the frame made 
 of the best native wood black, hard, and heavy, almost equal 
 to mahogany. It would not have been in accordance with 
 Samoan etiquette, nor yet in keeping with our own ideas of 
 Christian ethics, if, in these circumstances, we had not practised 
 a little giff-gaff ; but certainly it would have been the last ex- 
 planation that I would have accepted, that the desire to send us 
 those much-prized valuable gifts was in any way stimulated 
 by the lively apprehension of any future obligations. All those 
 teachers were a credit and an honour to the Society under 
 which they were trained the London Missionary Society.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE MISSION ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 IT is always interesting to trace the beginnings of any 
 important movements, especially when these seem very unlikely 
 to succeed. Such was the beginning of the mission work on 
 Aneityum. The natives, through whose instrumentality the 
 mission first gained a footing on the island, were the most 
 unlikely that any one could think of to be employed in such 
 a work. But God is wiser than man. 
 
 The first teachers on Aneityum, named Tavita and Fotau- 
 yasi, were located on Ipeke, the district next to Aname, my 
 station, by the Rev. A. W. Murray of the Samoan Mission. 
 Mr. Murray says, in his " Western Polynesia" : " Let us try 
 briefly to trace those movements which, under the guiding 
 hand, and by the blessing, of Him from whom all good comes, 
 have raised Aneityum to the distinguished position which it 
 at present holds among the isles of the sea. It was during 
 the third voyage of the Gamden to Western Polynesia that 
 Christian teachers were introduced to Aneityum. On that 
 occasion the writer was privileged to make his first acquaint- 
 ance with a department of missionary work in which he has 
 been permitted to have a considerable share. Vividly was this 
 feeling realised on the morning of March the 3oth, 1841, when 
 we approached Aneityum. We had succeeded on the preced- 
 ing day in introducing teachers to the adjacent island of
 
 244 THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 Futuna. There we had experienced comparatively little diffi- 
 culty, as on that island a dialect of the Eastern Polynesian 
 language is spoken ; but how were we to manage at Aneityum, 
 the language of which was utterly unintelligible to vis ? We had 
 made the best provision against the difficulty of which our 
 circumstances admitted, having brought with us the chief 
 Kotiama from Futuna to act as our interpreter. 
 
 " An odd character, indeed, was Kotiama to bring on such 
 a mission himself a heathen, and afterwards concerned in the 
 murder of his own teachers, and, alas ! a heathen to this day 
 (1863). He was of essential service to us, however, as without 
 him there was no likelihood that we should have succeeded in 
 the object of our visit. When we drew near the island, canoes 
 came off towards the ship ; but the natives would by no means 
 come on board. A good many years before an affray had taken 
 place with a sandal- wood vessel in which two white men were 
 killed and some wounded, and five natives were killed, hence 
 this distrust and apprehension. 
 
 " All our efforts to induce the natives to come on board 
 being unsuccessful, a boat was lowered, and Captain Morgan 
 and myself went in close to the shore. After a while one 
 character of note ventured near enough to our boat to receive 
 from my hands a string of beads. Snatching the treasure, at 
 the risk of his life, as he seemed to think, he immediately 
 backed astern ; but the scale was turned. His venture had 
 succeeded and having succeeded once, he might a second time 
 hence distrust soon gave place to confidence, and we were in 
 a fair way to gain our object. The bold fellow who received 
 the beads was Yatta, the chief of the district off which we 
 were. I have seen many a heathen of a deeply degraded and 
 savage character, but a more finished savage, to all appearance,
 
 THE MISSION ON ANEITYUM. 245 
 
 and, as we afterwards found, in reality, I never saw. He 
 realised most fully the idea one forms of the ferocious and 
 bloodthirsty savage. And yet this man received and protected 
 the messengers of peace. We made known our object, as well 
 as we could, through Kotiama. The teachers intended for 
 the island went on shore, and on their return they expressed 
 themselves satisfied with the prospects, and were willing to 
 remain. The reception they met with was interesting and 
 encouraging. Large numbers of people were congregated on 
 the beach. They expressed their pacific and friendly disposi- 
 tion by waving green boughs. Thus they welcomed to their 
 shores the messengers of salvation, and the initiatory step was 
 taken towards the wonderful revolution which has since been 
 effected. ' Who hath despised the day of small things ? ' " 
 
 Mr. Murray was prosecuting the Lord's work in faith; he 
 was " enduring as seeing Him who is invisible ; " he recognised 
 the hand of God in the relations into which he had been 
 brought both towards Kotiama and Yatta. They were, at 
 that time, the two most influential men on their respective 
 islands ; but the finger of God was working on behalf of the 
 mission far beyond anything that Mr. Murray then knew, or 
 perhaps ever knew at least he says nothing about it in his 
 book, and I never happened to hear him speak about it ; but 
 there was a man on board the Camden at that time, though 
 probably quite unknown to Mr. Murray, who was the most 
 important link in this chain of events, and that was Nu-umsi, 
 the Columbus of Aneityum, a brother of Yatta's ; he was 
 the first native of Aneityum who had ever sailed away in a 
 trading vessel, and gone beyond the adjoining islands and out 
 of sight of Aneityum. He sailed as far as the Loyalty Islands, 
 and on his way home called at Aniwa, and was left with
 
 246 THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 Kotiama on Futuna, one of the nearest islands to Aneityum. 
 When the Camden called at Futuna, and it was ascertained 
 that she was going to Aneityum, and would take Kotiama, 
 and also take home Nu-umsi, there was great rejoicing; a 
 great trading expedition would be at once arranged. The 
 settlement of the teachers on Futuna would be at once agreed 
 to ; almost any terms would have been agreed to in the 
 circumstances ; such a fortunate event had never occurred in 
 the memory of living man ; a foreign ship was going to take 
 them to Aneityum, and bring them back again. No wonder 
 that Mr. Murray says, as we have seen, that they had ex- 
 perienced little difficulty in settling the teachers on Futuna ; 
 the wonder would have been if there had been any difficulty at 
 all. Everywhere there would be excitement ; a large quantity 
 of property, chiefly mats and baskets, the staple manufacture 
 of Futuna, would be collected and taken on board. Kotiama 
 would have half-a-dozen of his leading men on board with 
 him, and Nu-umsi would act as pilot. He would cause the 
 vessel to be steered, not to Anelgauhat, the principal harbour, 
 then unknown to all sea-faring men, but direct to Ipeke, the 
 district over which his far-famed brother, Yatta, was chief. 
 As soon as Yatta would learn that his brother Nu-umsi was on 
 board, safe back from his hazardous travels, and that Kotiama, 
 the great chief of Futuna, was there also, with a large 
 quantity of mats and baskets, and that this was not, like the 
 last ship that had called at the island, a fighting ship that 
 this was a ship of peace, and killed nobody in these circum- 
 stances it would become as easy a matter to arrange for the 
 settlement of the teachers on Aneityum as it had been on 
 Futuna. I have an old copy of one of the numbers of the 
 London Missionary Society's Chronicle of that date, which
 
 THE MISSION ON ANEITYUM. 247 
 
 gives a woodcut of the landing of the first teachers on 
 Aneityum. There is the ship's boat, Captain Morgan at the 
 stern and Mr. Murray in the bow ; two strong natives are 
 each carrying one of the chests belonging to the teachers, 
 while the teachers and their wives are wading ashore, and a 
 wondering crowd are standing on the beach giving them a 
 cordial welcome. Meanwhile, Yatta would be levying a large 
 contribution of taro, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, horse-chestnuts, 
 sugar-cane, and bananas, from his three lands Ipeke, Aname, 
 and Isav to present to Kotiama and his friends, who doubtless 
 returned to Futuna extremely delighted with the results of the 
 expedition. It was an era, as the natives would account it, in 
 the history of both islands. Mr. Murray, too, and Captain 
 Morgan, as they had good reason, were much gratified with 
 their success. In the readiness with which the teachers were 
 received on both islands, they believed, in their ignorance and 
 inexperience, that they saw on the part of the natives a great 
 desire for the Gospel. It was, as they thought, the isles 
 waiting for His la-w. It was Ethiopia stretching out her 
 hands unto God. It was, however, just what had happened 
 on the shores of the sea of Galilee 1800 years before ; when 
 the multitude followed Christ, riot for His teaching, not for 
 the gracious words which flowed from His. lips, but for the 
 loaves and the fishes : because they ate of the; loaves and were 
 filled. So this opening for the Gospel was cause'd by no 
 desire for its heavenly blessings : it was caused simply by the 
 mats and the baskets of Futuna, and by the taro, the cocoa- 
 nuts, and the bananas of Aneityum. But, nevertheless, in 
 both cases the Lord was overruling men's hearts, without 
 their being conscious of it, for the establishment of His 
 kingdom. The Lord's hand was as certainly present in con-
 
 248 THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 nection with the Camden as it was when He girded the loins 
 of Cyrus, and supported his right hand at the time he was 
 made the deliverer of Israel, though he did not know Jehovah. 
 It was the Lord that implanted the spirit of enterprise in the 
 heart of Nu-umsi, as certainly as He had implanted it in the 
 heart of Columbus. He guided the heart of the captain of the 
 trading vessel to land him on Futuna, and not on Aneityum. 
 In this way he was ready for the service of the mission when 
 the Camden reached Futuna. He was made the connecting 
 link between Kotiama and Yatta; the one the best man for intro- 
 ducing Mr. Murray to Aneityum, because Mr. Murray could 
 speak to him, and he was a man of influence ; and the other 
 was the best man under whom to place the teachers for pro- 
 tection, as he was the most powerful chief in the district. 
 Nu-umsi had wonderful stories relating to his travels with 
 which to entertain his fellow-countrymen, and to occupy their 
 minds till the most perilous period for the teachers had 
 passed, and they were gaining a hold on the hearts of the 
 people for themselves on their own account. 
 
 Nu-umsi died before any of the natives professed Chris- 
 tianity, but the teachers, Tavita and Fotau-yasi, might have 
 conveyed to him sufficient knowledge to produce faith in 
 Christ. Bishop Selwyn used to say, " We cannot tell how 
 little Scriptural knowledge is sufficient to save the soul of a 
 heathen." The famous Mr. David Dickson, minister of 
 frvine, used to meet the objection of those who neglected the 
 salvation of their souls, and said in excuse, " Perhaps we are 
 not elected, and therefore it might be of no use to try," by 
 saying, " But perhaps you are, and the one perhaps is just 
 as good as the other, and rather better, for it is certain that 
 you have been elected to the privileges of the Gospel ; " so God,
 
 THE MISSION ON ANE1TYUM. 249 
 
 who elected Nu-umsi to be the pioneer of the Gospel for 
 Aneityum, might also have elected him to everlasting life, 
 and the Samoan teachers might supply him with the requisite 
 knowledge for producing faith but, like the Psalmist, we 
 must not meddle with things too high for us, for in his case 
 the Judge of all the earth would do right. But Nu-umsi left 
 two daughters, Naipora and Murivai, both young girls, who 
 afterwards attended Mrs. Inglis's classes, became church 
 members, were married to excellent young men, and exhibited 
 exemplary Christian lives, so that Nu-umsi brought the 
 Gospel, if not for himself which we hope he did yet at 
 least for his children and his countrymen. 
 
 Yatta had still another work to do, which he did, like the 
 former, quite unconsciously, but not so honourably. From 
 the settlement of the teachers till the settlement of the mis- 
 sionaries, seven long years were to intervene, and God made 
 provision for that event, and in so doing brought good out of 
 evil, and made the wrath of Yatta to praise Him. On Ipeke 
 there lived a man called Wumra, and his wife's name was 
 Singonga. Wumra was among the first on whom the Word 
 of God took effect. He began to keep the Sabbath, to attend 
 upon public worship, and pray both in secret and in his 
 family. In 1845 Mr. Murray, along with Rev. Mr., after- 
 wards Dr. Turner, visited Aneityum. Wumra applied to 
 them that he and his wife might be taken to Samoa, for the 
 sake of being more fully instructed in the Gospel ; but he had 
 a stronger reason than this of which the two missionaries 
 were in all likelihood not aware. Wumra was an elderly man, 
 but Singonga was a young, clever, good-looking woman ; and 
 Yatta had cast his covetous eyes upon his neighbour's wife, 
 and was plotting the murder of Wumra for the sake of ob-
 
 250 THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 ^t 
 
 taining Singonga. Wumr^rflpplication was successful, and 
 
 JfWP> 
 they were both taken on to Samoa, and lived for three years 
 
 at one of the mission stations, gained a considerable know- 
 ledge of the Samoan language, considerably increased their 
 acquaintance with Scripture, and grew in Christian character. 
 In 1848 they came- back with Mr. Geddie and the mission 
 party. But like the Holy Family, who, when they came back 
 from Egypt and heard that Archelaus reigned instead of his 
 father Herod, instead of settling in Bethlehem, went on to 
 Nazareth, so Wumra, when he heard that Yatta was still 
 chief of the land, and had two wives, instead of returning to 
 his own property in Ipeke, remained with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Geddie on the other side of the island, where Yatta durst 
 not show his face except at the risk of his life. Nearly five 
 years after this, Yatta came to me one day, as I was about to 
 sail to Mr. Geddie's station, to ask for a passage in my boat, 
 which I granted him, to visit his mortal enemy, now, like 
 himself, a Christian, and on the following day, the Sabbath, 
 the two walked to the house of God in company. That : was 
 the first time that Yatta had ever been at Anelgauhat, although 
 only about fourteen miles distant. Not that he lacked the 
 opportunity to do so, for, in order to get some of Yatta's men 
 to work for him, the proprietor of the trading establishment 
 had repeatedly offered to send round an armed boat to bring 
 Yatta to the harbour, but he durst not venture; but when a 
 mission-boat was going, though quite unarmed, he went with 
 the utmost confidence. When Wumra returned Yatta was 
 still a savage. After we were settled beside him, the natives 
 showed us an old native oven in which Yatta had caused the 
 body of a young man to be cooked for cannibal purposes. But 
 eleven years of missionary influence had wrought a marvellous
 
 THE MISSION ON ANE1TYUM. 251 
 
 change on the savage Yatta. Tavita (David), the Samoan 
 teacher, and his wife, had both died, the first of the missionary 
 staff who had fallen on Aneityum, and the teachers had be- 
 stowed the name of Tavita on Yatta, while they called his 
 principal wife Patisepa (Bathsheba). Notwithstanding much 
 that was not only unsatisfactory, but positively very wrong 
 in Yatta' s history, as might have been expected, he continued 
 steadily to protect the teachers and the missionaries. As 
 time went on he continued to improve, the truth evidently 
 laid hold of him ; as I have stated elsewhere, he put away one 
 of his wives, and was married to the other, and enjoyed 
 domestic peace to the end of his days. When he died, some 
 years afterwards, he was a candidate for church fellowship. 
 His death was caused by something like sunstroke, and his 
 illness was short. He left no son, but his daughter, Sina or 
 Jane, was a remarkably fine young woman ; she was the first 
 native girl that Mrs. Inglis took into her boarding-school, and 
 one of the first native women whom I baptized and admitted 
 into the church. She was married to one of the very best of 
 our young men, but after she had two children she died, like 
 her father, of what we afterwards found to be sunstroke. I 
 never saw such genuine grief displayed by the natives as I 
 saw and heard at her death ; the natives wail at every death, 
 but there, as elsewhere, much of the mourning is quite formal ; 
 but when Jane died, any one could perceive that the mourning 
 was genuine, that the weeping and the wailing came from the 
 heart. 
 
 But to return to Wumra and Singonga. As I have said 
 they were still afraid of Yatta, and did not return to Ipeke, 
 but remained with Mr. and Mrs. Geddie, which was a great 
 advantage to the mission, as they were a couple specially
 
 252 THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 prepared of God to assist the mission family in their first 
 struggles on Aneityum. Wumra assisted Mr. Geddie in 
 acquiring a knowledge of the native language, and Singonga 
 was for a long time Mrs. Geddie's right hand woman. It was 
 from Wumra that Mr. Geddie first got the correct word for 
 sin, and possibly, though I am not quite sure of this, also the 
 correct word for soul. During all the seven years that the 
 teachers were on the island before the arrival of the mission- 
 aries the nearest word for soul that they had got was shadoio, 
 and they were daily exhorting the natives to seek the salva- 
 tion, not of their souls, but of their shadoivs. Mr. Geddie got 
 also other important words, such as unbelief, faith, salvation, 
 &c. To acquire a knowledge of a foreign language in such 
 circumstances as they were in involved a great amount of 
 groping in the dark. It was not till Mr. and Mrs. Geddie 
 had been five years on Aneityum, and we had been one, that 
 he found out the native word for perhaps; and I think the 
 missionaries were ten or a dozen years on Tahiti before they 
 discovered some word that was equally common and equally 
 important. The word for perhaps is kit, often followed by et, 
 
 
 
 it is, and is pronounced so quickly, and is tripped over so 
 lightly, that it eluded their observation, and they were con- 
 tinually being annoyed by the natives telling them, as they 
 thought, falsehoods. They would have asked a native, 
 "Where is So-and-so?" or "What is So-and-so doing?" 
 The native would have answered, Kit et apan aien, fyc., or 
 Kit et ango aien, $c., " Perhaps he is away," &c., or " Perhaps 
 he is doing," &c. They understood him to say, Et apan aien, 
 fyc., "He is away," &c., or Et ango aien, $c., "He is doing," 
 &c. They often afterwards found out, of course, that the 
 meaning which they attached to the answer was not true, and
 
 THE MISSION ON ANEITYUM. 253 
 
 they inferred that the native was not speaking the truth, 
 which often led to serious misapprehensions. It was there- 
 fore a great and important discovery when kit was found out 
 and its correct meaning established; it was an acquisition 
 that was highly prized, a discovery that was greatly valued, 
 and could scarcely be overrated. 
 
 Kotiama, Yatta, and Nu-umsi were very unlikely agents 
 for God to employ to carry forward His work of mercy in 
 those heathen islands, but so were Judah, Jephthah, and 
 Samson in the Jewish Church ; and if salvation were of 
 works, none of these would be eligible for heaven ; but as it 
 is of grace, the irresistible efficacy of this Divine power can 
 accomplish anything ; it can transmute the chief of sinners 
 into the most eminent of saints, change the most ferocious 
 of murderers to be the mildest and meekest of martyrs, and 
 render the wildest of savages to be the gentlest of human 
 kind ; and this process is going constantly on wherever our 
 missionaries are opening the Bible to the heathen in their 
 own tongue.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES, 1887-8. 
 
 IN the volume which I published some years ago I had a 
 chapter on "The French in the New Hebrides." This is a 
 continuation of that chapter, bringing the history down to the 
 present date. The general public are very ignorant about 
 both the geography and the history of the South Sea Islands. 
 Few would believe how ignorant both the British Government 
 and the secular press of this country are about the French 
 and the New Hebrides, till within the last few years, when 
 the attitude of the French toward those islands, and their 
 unjust and unjustifiable claims to that group, have awakened 
 an interest in the subject that was never before thought of. 
 Lord Harrowby, President of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society, has done much to enlighten the British Government 
 on the question. Lord Roseberry has enlightened the Govern- 
 ment and the public as well. The reports of our Mission 
 Synod have diffused important information on this subject in 
 Scotland, in Nova Scotia, in Australia, and in New Zealand ; 
 the journals, letters, and speeches of our missionaries, 
 especially those of the Rev. J. G. Paton, have kept the subject 
 before the public mind. The Sydney Presbyterian, edited by 
 the Rev. J. Copeland, formerly one of our missionaries in the 
 New Hebrides, by the frequent publication of short, clear, 
 reliable statements, kept the churches of that denomination well
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 255 
 
 informed on this question. The Colonial Government in 
 Australia and New Zealand have been repeatedly calling the 
 attention of the Imperial Government to the attitude of the 
 French towards the New Hebrides ; and the Foreign Mission 
 Committee of the Free Church of Scotland have been knocking 
 at the door of the Foreign Office in London with all the 
 persistency of the importunate widow; all of which things 
 have been reported to the authorities in Paris, so that the 
 French Government, like the unjust judge, for the sake of 
 peace, have at last most reluctantly succumbed, and with a 
 very bad grace, on the i5th of March 1888, they removed 
 the troops they had stationed at Havannah harbour and on 
 Malikula ; and the life and property of their respective subjects 
 in the New Hebrides are to be secured by a mixed com- 
 mission of captains of British and French men-of-war. All 
 claims for the annexation of the group by France are thus 
 abandoned in the meantime, but how this dual protectorate 
 may work is still uncertain. If the French still wish to 
 occupy the New Hebrides, as there is too much reason to fear 
 that they do, it will be easy for them to fabricate a reason for 
 doing so. Before they left Malikula the French soldiers stole 
 a pig, and when the natives remonstrated they shot one of the 
 native chiefs. They left two Romish priests on Malikula 
 against the will of the natives, and it will be easy for these 
 men, in accordance with French policy, to lodge a complaint 
 against the natives; and as far as the French may have it 
 in their power, judging from all their past history in the 
 South Seas, it will be the wolf sitting in judgment on the lamb, 
 and it would require no prophet to foresee the verdict. The 
 Australian journals, the missionaries on the New Hebrides, 
 and the supportersjrf the mission at the Antipodes, are not
 
 256 THE FRENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 sanguine as to the success of the working of the mixed com- 
 mission. It is extensively believed that it is the chagrin felt 
 by the French at their being obliged to remove their troops 
 from the New Hebrides that has led them to wreak their 
 spite on the missions of the London Missionary Society on the 
 Loyalty Islands in the west and on the Society Islands in the 
 east. The Rev. John Jones of Mare" is the last victim of this 
 Rome-inspired persecution. He was for thirty years one of 
 the most peaceable, inoffensive, and law-abiding missionaries 
 in the South Seas. The French had worried him and fettered 
 him all those years to an extent that is almost incredible. 
 One restriction after another was imposed upon him. He 
 was forbidden to teach, he was forbidden to preach, he was pre- 
 vented from exercising almost all pastoral or mission work, so 
 that latterly he was confining himself almost entirely to his own 
 house, and doing almost nothing but translating the Scriptures 
 into the Mare" language. But Rome saw the danger to her 
 interests from the existence of an open Bible. In Tahiti, 
 before the French took possession of the island, the natives 
 had been supplied by the missionaries with a translation of 
 the whole Bible, and so attached had they become to the 
 Scriptures, that those of them who had become Papists 
 demanded the Bible so determinedly from the priests, that, as 
 they had no translation of their own to give them, they were 
 obliged to procure the Protestant translation from the agent 
 of the Bible Society, lest their converts should, as they 
 threatened them to do, return to their former faith and again 
 become Protestants. So, while engaged in translating the 
 Scriptures, Mr. Jones was surprised to be informed, by the 
 officer of a boat's crew from a French man-of-war, that they 
 had come to take him off the island, and that if he did not
 
 THE FBENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 257 
 
 leave the station with them in half-an-hour they would 
 remove him by force. Mr. Jones hastily packed up his MSS. 
 of the Bible and a few necessaries, and went on board in the 
 custody of the French officers. No charge was formulated 
 against him. When he asked to be informed of what crime 
 he was accused, his captors could only inform him that they 
 had instructions to take him off the island ; in a loose, in- 
 formal way he was accused of advocating the annexation of 
 Mare" to Australia, but no proof has been produced in support 
 of this charge. He was not tried either on Mar or on New 
 Caledonia. He was simply removed and sent adrift. When 
 Festus, the Roman Governor, consulted King Agrippa about 
 Paul, he said, " It seemeth to me unreasonable to send a 
 prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against 
 him." But these professedly Christian Frenchmen, members 
 of the only true and infallible Church, as they believe, standing 
 avowedly in the very van of European civilisation, are, in 
 their notions of justice, greatly behind those old heathen 
 Romans. A short time ago a deputation from the London 
 Missionary Society waited upon the Marquis of Salisbury and 
 laid Mr. Jones's case before the Government, but with what 
 result I have not yet heard. But from the policy they have 
 been pursuing, we can easily see the animus with which the 
 French regard Protestant missions ; and if they had succeeded 
 in annexing the New Hebrides islands, judging of the future 
 from the past, the fate that would have awaited our mission 
 and our missionaries could have been easily foretold. On 
 their present lines of policy the French greatly want the New 
 Hebrides. New Caledonia is already strained to its utmost 
 capacity for sheltering the convicts and recidivists, and more 
 are being poured in continually. Guiana is " found too
 
 258 THE FBENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 unhealthy for them," and they are to be transferred to New 
 Caledonia. The Australians are shocked with the proximity 
 of such a community. Their feeling towards their French 
 neighbours was strongly and unmistakably expressed by one 
 of the deputation from Victoria to the Free Church Assembly 
 at Inverness. The relations between Australia and New 
 Caledonia are so strained, that a little more pressure would 
 end in a rupture. The recidivists are constantly escaping 
 from New Caledonia and finding their way to Australia, and 
 more and more alienating the Anglo-Saxons from their Gallic 
 neighbours. 
 
 To show how highly honourable Her Majesty and Her 
 Majesty's Government act in regard to treaty obligations, and 
 how very careful they are not to wound the tenderest sensi- 
 bilities of the French in reference to the New Hebrides, I may 
 quote part of a letter that I received from a gentleman in 
 Glasgow, Mr. H. Barrett, who has been gratuitously acting 
 as agent for the Rev. H. A. Robertson, of Eromanga, in dis- 
 posing of the arrowroot prepared and contributed to the 
 mission by the natives of that island, and who also obliged 
 me in the same way by selling some of our Aneityum arrow- 
 root. He says in his letter 
 
 " 4 NATIONAL BANK BUILDINGS, QUEEN STREET, 
 "GLASGOW, 2ist September 1888. 
 
 " DEAR DR. INGLIS, It may interest you to know that some time 
 ago I sent a few packages of the Eromanga arrowroot to Her Majesty 
 Queen Victoria, through the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and 
 to-day I have received the following note from Downing Street : 
 
 ' I am directed "by Lord Knutsford to acknowledge the receipt of 
 your letter of the ist instant, stating that you had forwarded to Her
 
 THE FRENCH IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 259 
 
 Majesty at Balmoral Castle a package of arrowroot, on behalf of the 
 Christian natives of Eromanga, in the New Hebrides. 
 
 ' I am to acquaint you that the arrowroot has been duly received by 
 Her Majesty, and she has commanded me to convey, through you to 
 the Christian natives of Eromanga, her thanks for their present. 
 
 'I am to add that Her Majesty has accepted this gift in order not to 
 cause disappointment among the Christian natives, but in no way as 
 an act, however slight, of political importance ; the independence of 
 the New Hebrides group being respected by Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment and France. I am, sir, your obedient servant, R. H. MEADE.' 
 
 " I shall send our friend Mr. Robertson a copy of this, and I trust the 
 effect for good on the natives will be appreciated by him. With kind 
 regards, yours very truly, Hu. BARRETT." 
 
 I am greatly pleased that Her Majesty has inserted such a 
 distinct caveat in her letter, disowning on her own part, and 
 consequently disallowing all political action on the part of our 
 missionaries, and I trust that the French authorities will take 
 notice of this action on the part of Her Majesty. I will 
 instruct the agent of our mission in Sydney, the Rev. Robert 
 Steel, D.D., to forward a copy of this letter to Noumea to the 
 Governor of New Caledonia, whom some French residents in 
 the New Hebrides, but happily, to his credit, without effect, 
 have been urging to annex the New Hebrides to New Caledonia, 
 that he may see that our Government grant no favours to 
 the missionaries but such as they grant to all loyal, peaceable, 
 faithful, and law-abiding subjects, and we ask for no more.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 BISHOP FATTESON'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ANEITYUM, 1856. 
 
 THE Rev. J. 0. (afterwards Bishop) Patteson first visited the 
 New Hebrides along with Bishop Selwyn. He was a fine, 
 tall, well-made, good-looking man, the very type of a high- 
 class English gentleman. When the service of the Queen, in 
 some department or other, is the great object of ambition 
 among the sons of our nobility and gentry, we account it a 
 great" matter when men like Selwyn and Patteson, who, by 
 their talents, character, and social position, can easily obtain 
 the highest places in Church or State, cheerfully devote them- 
 selves to missionary work among the heathen. It is not 
 their own work alone that is important, but their example 
 stimulates and encourages a large number of average men 
 to engage in the same work, and they in this way give a 
 great impulse to missions. Most visitors, when they come to 
 the islands direct from Sydney or New Zealand, and thus pass 
 at once from the highest state of civilisation to the low type 
 of our most advanced Christianity, are greatly disappointed 
 with what they see among the natives, and express themselves 
 in language the reverse of flattering to the feelings of the 
 missionaries. It is gratifying, therefore, to find such an 
 appreciative estimate of what he saw on our island put on 
 record by Mr. Patteson. Aneityum was the first island in 
 the South Seas on which he landed, and it was under our
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF ANEITYUM. 261 
 
 roof that he spent his first night on shore. The Soutliern 
 Cross on that occasion had brought us two boxes of mission 
 supplies from friends in New Zealand. Bishop Selwyn came 
 round to my station to land these boxes ; the sea was rather 
 rough, but he came as near to our harbour as he durst, and, 
 when the Tahitian went out in his whaleboat, he lay-to a 
 little to windward, as near the shore as possible, and Mr. 
 Patteson and Mr. Harper, a son of the Bishop of Christ- 
 church, came ashore with the boxes. 
 
 The following extract is from the Bishop's journal, as given 
 in Miss C. M. Yonge's "Life of the Martyr Bishop." 
 
 "The Southern Cross reached Aneityum on the i4th of 
 July 1856. This island was occupied by Mr. Inglis and Mr. 
 Geddie of the Scottish Presbyterian Mission, who had done 
 much towards improving the natives. Small canoes soon 
 began to come off to the vessel, little craft, consisting of no 
 more than the trunk of a tree hollowed out, seldom more than 
 a foot broad, and perhaps eighteen inches deep, all with out- 
 riggers namely, a slight wooden frame or raft to balance 
 them, and for the most part containing two men, or sometimes 
 three or four. Before long not less than fifteen or twenty had 
 come on board, with woolly hair and mahogany skins, generally 
 wearing a small strip of calico, but some without even this. 
 They were small men, but lithe and supple, and walked about 
 the deck quite at ease, chattering in a language no one under- 
 stood except the words ' Missy Inglis,' as they pointed to a 
 house ; presently another canoe arrived with a Samoan 
 teacher, with whom the Bishop could converse, and who said 
 that Mr. Geddie was at Mare. They were soon followed by a 
 whaleboat with a Tahitian, a Futuna man, and a crew of 
 Aneityumese.
 
 262 BISHOP PATTESON'S FIEST 
 
 " The Futuna man had expended his energies upon his hair, 
 which was elaborately dressed after a fashion that precluded 
 the possibility of any attention being bestowed upon the rest 
 of his person, which was accordingly unencumbered with any 
 clothing. The perfection of this art apparently consisted in 
 gathering up about a dozen hairs and binding them firmly 
 with grass or fine twine of cocoa-nut fibre (not from cocoa-nut 
 fibre, but from the inner rind of the bark of a bush that grows 
 inland, and is tough and pliable as a strong thread), plastered 
 with coral lime. As the hair grows, the binding is lengthened 
 also, and only about four or five inches are suffered to escape 
 from this confinement, and are then frizzed and curled like 
 a mop or a poodle's coat. Leonard Harper and I returned 
 in this boat, Tahitian steering, Samoan, Futunan, and 
 Aneityumese making one motley crew. The brisk trade- 
 wind soon carried us to the beach in front of Mr. Inglis's 
 house, and, arrived at the reef, I rode out pick-a-back on the 
 Samoan, Leonard following on the back of a half-naked 
 Aneityan. We soon found ourselves in the midst of a number 
 of men, women, and children, standing round Mr. Inglis at 
 the entrance of his garden. I explained to him the reason of 
 the Bishop's being unable to land; that he alone knew the 
 harbour on the other side of the island, and so could not leave 
 the vessel. 
 
 " Then, having delivered the boxes and letters we had brought 
 for him from Auckland, we went into his house, gazing with 
 delight at cocoa-nut trees, bananas, bread-fruit trees, citrons, 
 lemons, taro, &c., with bright tropical colouring thrown over 
 all, lighting up the broad leaves and thick foliage of the trees 
 around us. 
 
 " The house itself is built, after the fashion of these islands,
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF ANEITYUM. 263 
 
 of wattle, plastered with coral lime, the roof thatched with 
 the leaves of the cocoa-nut and pandanus. The fences of the 
 garden were made of cane, prettily worked together into a 
 cross pattern, the path neatly kept, and everything looking 
 clean and tidy. We sat down in a small well-furnished room, 
 and looked out upon the garden, verandah, and groups of men 
 and women standing outside. Presently Mrs. Inglis came 
 into the room, and after some discussion I was persuaded to 
 stay all night, since the schooner could not reach her anchorage 
 before dark; and the next day the water casks were to be 
 filled. An excellent dinner was provided roast fowl with 
 taro (a nutritious root, somewhat like potato), rice and jam, 
 bananas and delicious fruit, bread and Scotch cheese, with 
 glasses of cocoa-nut milk. 
 
 "Afterwards he showed us the arrangements for boarding 
 young men and women, twelve of the former and fourteen of 
 the latter. Nothing could well exceed the cleanliness and 
 order of their houses, sleeping rooms, and cooking rooma 
 The houses, wattled and plastered, had floors covered with 
 native mats, beds laid upon a raised platform running round 
 the inner room, mats and blankets for covering, and bamboo 
 cane for a pillow. The boys were, some writing, some making 
 twine, some summing, when we went in ; the girls just 
 putting on their bonnets, of their own manufacture, for 
 school. 
 
 " They learn all household work cooking, hemming, sewing, 
 &c. ; the boys tend the poultry, cows, cultivate taro, make 
 arrowroot, &c. All of them could read fluently, and all looked 
 happy, clean, and healthy. The girls wear their native petti- 
 coats of pandanus leaves, with a calico body. Boys wear 
 trousers, and some had shirts, waistcoats, and a few jackets.
 
 264 BISHOP PATTESON'S FIKST 
 
 " We walked about a small wood adjoining the house, through 
 which a small fresh-water stream runs. In the woods we saw 
 specimens of the various trees and shrubs and flowers of the 
 islands, including those already noticed in Mr. Inglis's garden, 
 and the bread-fruit tree, and sugar-cane, and a beautiful bright 
 flower of scarlet colour, a convolvulus, larger than any I had 
 seen elsewhere; also a tree bearing a very beautiful yellow 
 flower. 
 
 " We then returned to the house, and shortly afterwards went 
 to the church, which is at present used as a schoolhouse, 
 though the uprights of a larger schoolhouse are already fixed 
 in the ground. 
 
 " Men, women, and children, to the number of ninety-four, 
 had assembled in a large oblong building, wattled and plastered, 
 with open windows on all sides ; mats arranged on the floor, 
 and a raised platform or bench running round the building, 
 for persons who prefer to sit after the English instead of the 
 native fashion. 
 
 " All that were called upon to read did so fluently; the singing 
 was harsh and nasal enough, but in very good time; their 
 counting very good, and their writing on slates quite equal to 
 the average performances, I am satisfied, of a good English 
 parish school. They listened attentively when Mr. Inglis 
 spoke to them, and when, at his request, I said a few words, 
 which he translated. The most perfect order and quiet pre- 
 vailed all the time we were in the school. At the end of the 
 lessons they came forward, and each one shook hands with 
 Leonard Harper and myself, smiling and laughing with their 
 quick intelligent eyes, and apparently pleased to see strangers 
 among them. 
 
 " By this time it was dusk, and we went back to the mission-
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF ANEITYUM. 265 
 
 house and spent a pleasant evening asking and answering 
 questions about Aneityum and the world beyond it till 
 8 P.M., when the boarders came to prayers and two or three 
 persons who live about the place. They read the third 
 chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel in turns, verse by verse, and 
 then a prayer by Mr. Inglis followed. At 8.30 we had 
 private family prayers, and at 9 went to bed. 
 
 "July 16. We got up at 4, and were soon ready for our 
 walk to the south side of the island. Mr. Inglis came with 
 us, and ten or twelve natives. For the first half-mile we 
 walked along the beach among cocoa-nut trees, bananas, and 
 sugar-cane ; the sun, not yet above the horizon, tinging the 
 light clouds with faint pink and purple lines ; the freshness 
 of the early dawn, and the soft breeze playing about us, 
 gladdening at once our eyes and our hearts. Soon we struck 
 off to the south, and, passing through taro plantations, began 
 to ascend the slopes of the island. As we walked along we 
 heard the sound of the logs beaten together summoning the 
 people to attend the various schools planted in every locality 
 under the management of native teachers ; and we had a 
 good opportunity of observing the careful system of irrigation 
 adopted by the natives for the cultivation of the taro plant. 
 Following the course of a small mountain stream, we observed 
 the labour with which the water was brought down from 
 it upon causeways of earth carried in baskets from very con- 
 siderable distances. Occasionally the water is led round the 
 head of various small ravines ; at other times the trunk of 
 a tree is hollowed out and converted into an aqueduct, but 
 no pains have been wanting to make every provision for the 
 growth of the staple food of the island. 
 
 " The last school here, on the north side of the island, is
 
 266 BISHOP PATTESON'S FIRST 
 
 about two miles from the coast, and from this point the path 
 is very steep, stony, and slippery, and occasionally requires 
 the use of hands as well as feet ; but to our amazement, and 
 advantage too, as it turned out, two natives attached them- 
 selves to us, and were always at hand to catch us if we 
 slipped, and help us up a rock or carry us across a stream 
 willing, good-natured fellows, laughing and chattering away, 
 and waiting upon us in a style that I had hitherto supposed 
 to be exclusively Oriental. 
 
 " The scenery of the uplands of this island is excessively 
 beautiful ; rich masses of forest, with deep intersecting valleys, 
 undulating slopes, brakes and woods, streams and torrents, 
 and, occasionally, glimpses of the lower plains by the seaside ; 
 the clearings for cultivation, the cocoa-nut trees on the beach, 
 the lagoon and the coral reef, and the broad open sea beyond. 
 We reached Mr. Geddie's station about n, and found the 
 Bishop seated a quarter of a mile from the settlement taking 
 shore sights, to the amazement, no doubt, of the dozen 
 natives who were grouped around him ; Hoari (George), the 
 New Zealand boy, very happy in the possession of a good 
 piece of sugar-cane, the men engaged in fetching water, the 
 vessel lying in the lagoon, and all looking as comfortable as 
 if the island had for centuries been the rendezvous of traders 
 and missionaries. Scarcely could one credit the fact that 
 eight years ago there was not one Christian upon it. Nohoat, 
 the principal chief of the island, came from his house to meet 
 us, and with him some three or four Tanna men, their faces 
 painted red. Nohoat has lately been behaving very well, and 
 showing a disposition to leave off native customs. Some of 
 these people are going as pioneers to the two islands which 
 can be seen from Aneityum, Tanna, with perhaps some
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF ANEITYUM. 267 
 
 6000 inhabitants, and a volcano in active operation; and 
 Futuna, with about 600. 
 
 " From this scene of hope and encouragement the Southern 
 Cross sailed on the i6th, and, passing Eromanga, came in sight 
 of Fate." 
 
 From this time till 1864, when we obtained the Day spring, 
 and no longer required his visits, he generally called once a 
 year at Aneityum and the other islands where we had mission- 
 aries located, bringing letters or supplies, as the case might be, 
 and taking up our mails to the colonies. Yea, up to the time 
 of his lamented death at Nakapu in September 1871, there 
 was nothing but the most cordial relations between him and us : 
 and no higher tribute was paid to his memory than that re- 
 corded in the minutes of the New Hebrides Mission Synod in 
 the following year. 
 
 Some, who were fond of drawing comparisons, likened Bishop 
 Selwyn to the Apostle Paul, and Bishop Patteson to the 
 Apostle John, the one a man of strong character, on whom 
 feeble natures liked to lean ; the other a man of singular 
 amiability, to whom gentle natures went out in love and 
 clung to in affection.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 FOR about twenty years Rangi was an outstanding figure in 
 the New Hebrides, and filled a large space in the public eye 
 among those islands, at first in connection with the sandal- 
 wood trade, and latterly as an agent in the labour traffic. 
 He was a Malay, a native of Singapore, and a British subject. 
 He first became famous in those regions while living among 
 the natives in New Caledonia, before the establishment of the 
 French power on that island. A trading or sandalwood vessel 
 was seized there by the natives, and some white men belonging 
 to the crew were murdered. Rangi was accused of being 
 deeply involved in the plot. He was got hold of by the white 
 men, tried, and condemned to be hanged. But here the traders 
 paused ; they saw danger to themselves ; they were afraid lest 
 the authorities in Sydney, or elsewhere, might call them to 
 account for their proceedings. The law allows no British 
 subject to inflict capital punishment, unless he act on Her 
 Majesty's authority duly conferred. I knew a captain in 
 those seas who gave the use of his vessel to a party of white 
 men to hang a native whom they had adjudged worthy of 
 death. He and his crew took no part in the proceedings ; 
 they retired to the fore-part of the ship and left the after- part 
 to those conducting the execution. But no sooner did the 
 vessel reach Sydney, whither the report had preceded him,
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 269 
 
 than the captain was arrested and lodged in prison on a 
 charge of murder being committed on board of his ship. The 
 law recognises the deck of every British vessel as British 
 .territory, and holds the captain responsible for all that is done 
 on board. This captain was tried and condemned to so many 
 years of penal servitude. He was a man well connected, and 
 strong influences were brought to bear on the Government on 
 his behalf, and his punishment was first commuted, and subse- 
 quently remitted ; but the authority of the law was vindicated. 
 It was by overlooking this principle that the mistake was 
 made the other year by the missionaries of the Established 
 Church of Scotland at Blantyre in Livingstonia, and also, 
 about the same time, by the Rev. Mr. Brown of the Wesleyan 
 Mission in New Britain, who, with the aid of some white men, 
 as well as some Christian natives, waged war against the 
 heathens. The captain of a man of war, who was sent by the 
 Government to examine into the case, exonerated Mr. Brown, 
 as acting simply in self-defence, although the public thought 
 that he went greatly beyond that, and when the matter came to 
 be discussed in the House of Commons, although no action was 
 taken in either case, the law was announced with unmistake- 
 able clearness. And we who have lived in heathen lands know 
 the value of such a law. But for this stringent enactment every 
 over-zealous, strong-headed, imprudent missionary might soon 
 get himself and his brethren into trouble, and possibly ruin 
 the mission ; and every runaway sailor might profess that the 
 natives had made him a chief, and that he could punish and 
 kill natives at his pleasure. But Rangi's captors were wise 
 in their generation. Fear led them to spare his life, and self- 
 interest counselled them to utilise his abilities. Finding that 
 he was a man who might be turned to good account for the
 
 270 KANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 snndalwood trade, they concluded that the most satisfactory 
 and salutary punishment they could inflict upon him was to 
 send him to Eromanga to collect sandalwood. The results 
 showed the shrewdness and sagacity of their views and the. 
 practical worldly wisdom ^of their policy. Rangi was a man of 
 great energy, not at all scrupulous or squeamish about the 
 means he employed to attain his ends, and in the collecting of 
 sandalwood most successful ; he was by far the best agent the 
 traders ever employed on Eromanga. 
 
 It was firmly believed by some that he was the chief insti- 
 gator of the murder of Rev. G. N. Gordon and his wife ; but 
 as the evidence on this point was conflicting, he may be allowed 
 the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 When the traders left Rangi on Eromanga, they kept him 
 well supplied with "trade," or material with which to buy 
 sandalwood. In the eyes of the Eromangans he was a wealthy 
 man. In those days any man could obtain a wife if he could 
 only pay the price. Rangi set to work at once, and, as oppor- 
 tunity offered, bought one chief's daughter as his wife after 
 another, till he had as many, according to report, as sixteen, 
 all slaves in reality. But the fathers and relations of his 
 wives, from motives of self-interest, all supported Rangi. In 
 this way he was virtually king of Eromanga he was the 
 " uncrowned king " of that Emerald Isle and he thus held a 
 monopoly of the sandalwood. He could buy it when and 
 where he liked ; no other person had any chance in competing 
 with him. Eromanga was virtually a gold mine to the traders. 
 For a few foreign shells, mostly from Fiji, but prized like 
 diamonds by the chiefs for armlets, costing about a dollar 
 each, a boat-load of sandalwood could be obtained worth 
 ^40 in China. The sandalwood collected on Eromanga, as
 
 EANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 271 
 
 currently reported, realised no less than ^70,000 in the China 
 market, and the most of that sandalwood was gathered in 
 Rangi's time, so that from a money point of view his had 
 proved a valuable life to his captors. 
 
 When the sandalwood was exhausted on Eromanga, Rangi 
 went to Efate to see if any could be found there, but there 
 was none ; but the labour traffic commenced about that time, 
 and he at once became an efficient agent in that trade. When 
 he went to Efate he took with him ten wives, all natives of 
 Eromanga. He had previously had an Aneityum woman as 
 his wife, who had one son to him; but he had left this wife 
 when he went to Eromanga. He had also bought an Efate 
 woman as his wife since he had gone thither. He was living 
 in a low swampy locality, and four of his wives had died before 
 he was killed. He had been on Efate about three years when 
 he was murdered, which was in the end of May 1868. 
 
 A month or six weeks after the murder of Rangi, Mr. Cosh, 
 our missionary on Pango, Efate, now minister of the Presby- 
 terian church of Balmain, Sydney, and I, wen tin the Dai/spring 
 into Havannah Harbour, where Rangi had lived, as a deputa- 
 tion to open up the mission station now occupied by the Rev. 
 D. Macdonald. The account we received of his murder was 
 this : One day an inland native came to Rangi's house ; he 
 had hid his tomahawk beneath the root of a tree near the 
 beach, had gone in, and got Rangi out, pretending that he 
 wished to make a bargain about the cutting of some grass for 
 a new house which Rangi was about to erect ; he then slipped 
 away for his tomahawk, hid it under his arm, came quietly in 
 behind Rangi, as he stood unsuspicious of danger, and struck 
 him a fatal blow on the back of the head. Having dispatched 
 Rangi, he coolly wiped the blood off his hatchet, put it again
 
 272 EANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 under his arm, walked up to the house, and with the same 
 weapon killed one of Rangi's wives. The other five Eromangan 
 wives and his eight children would also have shared the same 
 fate would all have been murdered had not Marek-mel, 
 the chief of Isema, the nearest village to Rangi's house, been 
 present, and interposed his authority for their protection, and 
 stayed the slaughter, and taken them all home to his own 
 house. The two bodies were disposed of as is usually done by 
 cannibals. Rangi's property, which was very considerable 
 it was even said that he had ^150 or ^200 of money in the 
 house was all plundered by the natives who had planned his 
 murder. 
 
 As to the facts of the murder, and the identity of the 
 murderer, the accounts we heard were all substantially the 
 same. But as to the cause of the murder the reason on 
 account of which he was murdered the evidence was very 
 conflicting. We heard three distinct, independent accounts 
 one from the natives, another from a native of the Loyalty 
 Islands, an agent for the labour traffic, who lived in the 
 Harbour, and who spoke intelligible English, and a third 
 from a white man who knew Rangi well. The first account 
 was that Rangi had been carrying matters with a high hand 
 among the natives, that he had become specially disliked by 
 two chiefs in the district, that one day the daughter or niece 
 of one of those two chiefs, whose husband had been away in 
 Queensland for three years, was at the well for water, and 
 was coming home, when Rangi met her in the path and in- 
 sulted her; she ran home, and told her father or her uncle 
 that Rangi had shown bad intentions towards her. The 
 chief's anger was inflamed ; he said Rangi should die for 
 that. A plot was laid for his life, an inland man was em-
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 273 
 
 ployed to carry it out, and in a month thereafter Kangi was 
 a dead man. 
 
 The second account said that three gentlemen belonging to 
 the labour traffic had bought a large piece of land contiguous 
 to Eangi's establishment, with the view of cultivating cotton, 
 coffee, and sugar ; that Rangi was employed as interpreter and 
 agent in the transactions ; that he paid ten muskets, so many 
 webs of calico, so much powder and shot, so much tobacco, so 
 many pipes, so many pounds of beads, &c., to one chief; to 
 other two chiefs^ he paid each one half of the above quantity ; 
 and that the one of these chiefs, though he professed to be 
 satisfied, was not, and knowing that Eangi had a large 
 quantity of goods in his house, he resolved to kill him and 
 get hold of his property. He therefore sent for an inland 
 native, a man who had been implicated in the capture of a 
 vessel called the Mary Ira and the murder of four white 
 men about two years before that time. This chief broke off 
 the head of a yam and a piece of a kava plant, and said to the 
 man, "You eat and drink these, and kill Rangi." When he 
 had accepted these, his honour was pledged to undertake the 
 deed, and in due time it was accomplished. 
 
 The third account was, that when Rangi was collecting 
 sandalwood on Eromanga, numbers of Efate men were taken 
 thither as labourers; that Rangi had often charge of them, 
 and treated them frequently with the greatest harshness and 
 severity made them work whether they were well or ill, and 
 if he did not shoot any of them, he killed them with hard 
 usage and that he was still displaying his old spirit, as far as 
 he had opportunity, and that the natives of Efate had for a 
 long time resolved to kill him. " A terrible murderer," said 
 our white informant, "was that Rangi." Some one, aware
 
 274 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 of the feeling against him, told him to be on his guard. He 
 replied that he was not afraid of the natives, as he had plenty 
 of powder and shot. It is probable that there was a portion 
 of truth in all these three accounts, that all these different 
 causes more or less conspired to bring about the result. 
 
 Mr. Cosh and I went ashore and visited Rangi's house. He 
 had had a large establishment. It was surrounded first by a 
 strong fence of wooden posts, six or seven feet high, resembling 
 a New Zealand pah ; outside, but close to this, was a strongly 
 wattled reed fence ; the whole quite ball-proof, with loopholes 
 at regular intervals for shooting out at with muskets. But 
 it is treachery, rather than force, that has to be guarded 
 against when living among natives. 
 
 We found four of Rangi's wives and seven of his children 
 living under the protection of the Loyalty Island man on the 
 other side of Havannah Harbour. The fifth wife had been 
 taken away in a vessel by a white man, and one of the children 
 had died the day before our arrival. Rangi had sent his boy 
 his son by the Aneityum wife to Brisbane, for the sake of 
 his education, as we were told. When we were at Dillon's 
 Bay the Eromangans had urgently requested us to bring back 
 Rangi's wives to their own land. We did our best in this 
 work of humanity. We found the poor women very anxious 
 to get home, and we brought away three of the wives and 
 three of the children. We left one wife and four children. 
 The Loyalty Island man wished to keep the two eldest boys, 
 who were about six or seven years of age, and they wished to 
 stay with him ; their mothers were dead. But as the fourth 
 woman, who had two children of her own, both quite young, 
 was coming to the boat, one of the boys began to cry violently 
 for her to stay with him, and as he could not be pacified, and
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 2/5 
 
 as we were in the midst of heathen natives, we thought it best 
 to push off with as many as we could get quietly, especially as 
 our time was limited. The woman who appeared to be Rangi's 
 chief wife carried a double-barrelled gun ; when she got into 
 the boat she fired off, into the sea, first the one barrel and 
 then the other, with as much coolness as if she had been an 
 Amazon. The woman that stayed behind carried a large 
 revolver. We weighed anchor and put out to sea. On passing 
 Pango Mr. Cosh was put ashore at his own station, and I 
 brought the three women and the three children on to 
 Eromanga, and left them with Mr. and Mrs. M'Nair. Their 
 Eromangan friends, being mostly Christians, appeared to 
 receive them with much kindness. 
 
 Mrs. M'Nair, now Mrs. Dr. Turner, writes me and says : 
 " Most distinctly do I recollect the time when you landed the 
 women and children from the Dayspring. Their support was 
 almost entirely at first thrown upon us. So we set about 
 finding employment for the women. The chief wife we took 
 into our family as servant. She was a clever and most useful 
 woman ; but as she could not or would not work with the 
 Eromangan girls, out of consideration for them we had to 
 part with her after a time. We thought we traced her in the 
 Ellis group in 1876, as the wife of a white man there. 
 Thomas Amos was a child about a year old, a plump, heavy- 
 looking boy, with festering sores about his mouth and face, 
 the little mouth always open, and round as a dollar : his 
 mother was made assistant laundress. The third woman was 
 lame, and one mass of sores, so she got patch-work to sew or 
 little garments to make for the small Eromangans, and so 
 helped to maintain her independence." 
 
 Our merchants are princes, and our traffickers are the
 
 2?6 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 honourable of the earth. They magnify their office, extol 
 their calling, and boast loudly of the blessings that they con- 
 fer upon mankind. That they accomplish a vast amount 
 of good, no one either doubts or denies. But, unhappily, the 
 result of their movements is not always, as they wish us to 
 believe it to be, an unmixed good. In the outskirts of 
 civilisation, and among wholly uncivilised races, the agents 
 they employ are often men of very doubtful character. 
 Rangi's employer was a merchant prince, a man honoured 
 by the mercantile aristocracy. Rangi himself was a type of 
 one class of evangelists whom commerce employs among those 
 islands to civilise the natives and prepare them for Chris- 
 tianity, and of one detachment of the pioneers whom we 
 have to follow in planting the Gospel among those dark and 
 deeply degraded races. 
 
 If one might be allowed to compare the small with the 
 great, the present with the long past, the lines composed by 
 Sir David Lindsay of the Mount on Cardinal Beaton of St. 
 Andrews, and, more than a century later, applied to Arch- 
 bishop Sharp, might now, at the end of other two centuries, 
 be not unfitly applied to poor Rangi : 
 
 " As for the Cardinal, I grant 
 He was a man we weel could want ; 
 
 God will forgive it soon. 
 But yet in sooth, the truth to say, 
 Although the loon be weel away, 
 
 The deed was foully done." 
 
 But happily, in connection with Rangi we have a very 
 pleasing episode to relate. At times grace interposes and 
 cuts off a sinful entail, so that the sins of the fathers are not 
 visited upon the children. Josiah was the grandson of
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 277 
 
 Manasseh. The younger son of Kasuaui, the murderer of 
 John Williams, laid the foundation stone of the Martyrs' 
 Memorial Church at Dillon's Bay, Eromanga; and the 
 youngest son of Rangi, called Thomas Amos, came to this 
 country and was learning to be a printer, with the view of his 
 being sent back to Eromanga to take charge of the mission 
 press, and train up a staff of printers from among his own 
 countrymen to print elementary books for all the islands, 
 and in this way compensate, as far as possible, for the evils 
 done by his father. 
 
 His coming to this country occurred in this way. When I 
 brought three of Rangi's wives and three of his children from 
 Efate to Eromanga, the youngest of those children was a boy 
 of about a year old. His mother and he, with a sister about 
 two years older, continued to live on the mission premises, 
 first with Mr. and Mrs. N'Nair and subsequently with Mr. 
 and Mrs. Robertson. The mother abandoned heathenism, 
 and placed herself and her two children under the instruction 
 of the missionaries. Both mother and daughter, I under- 
 stand, have faithfully improved their privileges, and, if I am 
 not mistaken, Mr. Robertson has admitted both of them to 
 the fellowship of the church. Thomas Amos, the youngest 
 son of Rangi, grew up a very smart boy, and attracted the 
 attention of Lieutenant (now Captain) Caffin, R.N., an 
 excellent Christian man, who was at that time in command 
 of the Renard, the Government gunboat stationed on the 
 New Hebrides to watch the labour traffic. He was often 
 at Eromanga, and saw a good deal of the boy. On one 
 occasion when my wife and I were in the Dayspring, we were 
 wind-bound for about a week at Dillon's Bay, and there made 
 the acquaintance of Mr. Caffin, whom we met with every day
 
 2/8 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 at the mission-house. When Mr. Caffin was leaving the 
 New Hebrides, with the consent of the mother and of the 
 boy himself, he brought Thomas Amos home with him, with 
 the view of having him educated in this country and sent 
 back to Eromanga as a missionary to his own countrymen. He 
 expected to be able to get him educated free, or at least at a 
 reduced rate, at some college or institution here. But he was 
 disappointed to find that there was no institution into which 
 a lad of this kind could be received. The Rev. Grattan 
 Guinness would have received him into his Missionary College 
 in London, but he was too young for any of the classes in 
 that institution. But he promised to take him in when he 
 was sixteen years of age. Captain Caffin kept him boarded, 
 at his own expense, in an excellent private school near 
 Norwich, for about four years. He then transferred him to 
 Mr. Guinness's college, where he remained a year. But after 
 consulting with Mr. Robertson and myself, by whose advice 
 he has been always guided, it was thought that we could not 
 turn his acquirements to better account than by apprenticing 
 him for five years in a first-class printing establishment in 
 Leominster, Herefordshire, so that he might return to the 
 islands not only a good English scholar, but a thoroughly 
 trained printer. He was three years at the printing. Cap- 
 tain Caffin, who undertook the whole responsibility of his 
 support, always saw that his religious training was carefully 
 attended to, and that he was always surrounded by the best 
 of Christian influences. When I learned that Captain Caffin 
 was himself alone bearing the whole expense of his support 
 and education, I offered to raise ^10 a year among my own 
 personal friends to assist him. This I did for seven or 
 eight years, chiefly through the aid of a few good Christian
 
 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 2 79 
 
 ladies deeply interested in the New Hebrides Mission, who 
 cheerfully gave me a pound a year each. Mr. Robertson also 
 collected ;io among his friends when he was home in Nova 
 Scotia. Captain Caffin's religious principles are of the type 
 of Moody and Sankey's. His father was one of their com- 
 mittee of management when they were first in London about 
 fourteen years ago ; and when he and his second in command 
 came ashore on Eromanga on the Sabbath evening to our 
 mission service, they left the men on board singing Sankey's 
 hymns. He is also a brother-in-law to the well-known Rob 
 Roy MacGregor, who sailed down the Jordan and other rivers 
 in his canoe, and who, when an infant in his mother's arms, 
 was rescued, in the Bay of Biscay, from the burning of the 
 Kent, East Indiaman. Great and marvellous are the doings 
 of the Lord God Almighty. 
 
 Man proposes, but God disposes. Our sanguine hopes are 
 often sadly disappointed. In less than two years Thomas 
 Amos's curriculum of study would have been completed, his 
 apprenticeship would have been ended, and he would have 
 returned to Eromanga a fully qualified printer, prepared to 
 devote himself, all his time and all his acquirements, to serve 
 God in the work of the mission. But God had otherwise 
 appointed. He was an active lad, social in disposition and 
 overflowing with animal spirits. He took an active interest 
 in all the innocent athletic sports usually carried on in English 
 public schools, such as cricket, football, &c. But even in the 
 best conducted of these games there is danger, as the news- 
 papers are every now and again informing us. In the end of 
 last year, while playing at football, he accidentally received a 
 kick on the ankle ; but he apprehended no danger, and hence 
 paid no particular attention to it for some time ; but when
 
 280 RANGI AND HIS SON THOMAS AMOS. 
 
 the doctor examined it, he found that the case was a serious 
 one, and he was at once placed in the hospital. There he was 
 attended by the best medical skill and nursed with the 
 greatest care that the institution could supply ; but the bone 
 had been injured, the foot had to be amputated, and the 
 patient succumbed after the operation. Those islanders have 
 not the robust constitutions that the inhabitants of this 
 country possess : under favourable circumstances they enjoy 
 good health and attain to an average length of life, but if 
 they meet with any accident, or are exposed to any unfavour- 
 able conditions of life, they have not the sustaining energy 
 nor the recuperative power that white men possess. 
 
 But it is satisfactory to know that during the eight or nine 
 years that he lived in this country in Norwich, in London, 
 and in Leominster he maintained a highly consistent Chris- 
 tian character, he made fair progress in learning, he was 
 acquiring a satisfactory knowledge of printing ; he was every- 
 where well liked and highly esteemed, he was a general 
 favourite among his companions; he lived respected and he 
 died lamented. On the Sabbath after his funeral the minister 
 of the church in which he worshipped in Leominster preached 
 an impressive sermon, and improved the occasion and the 
 circumstances of his death in a way that was calculated to 
 benefit the audience and leave good impressions on the com- 
 munity among whom he had lived. When many shall come 
 from the east and from the west, and from the north and 
 from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac 
 and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, may the children of the 
 kingdom not be cast out into outer darkness.
 
 TWO NATIVES OF ANEITYUM. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 LASAEUS AND ESTER. 
 
 TAKING them unitedly and all round, Lasarus and Ester were 
 the most useful couple that we had in the mission. She 
 was certainly the most outstanding woman we had on our 
 side of the island. At the time we were settled on Aneityum, 
 Lasarus was one of a galaxy of young men, about ten or 
 twelve in number, who had abandoned heathenism and placed 
 themselves under Christian instruction. Williamu, being the
 
 252 LASARUS AND ESTER. 
 
 oldest, was the most outstanding of this band. Lasarus was 
 the least conspicuous, because he was among the youngest. 
 They all became pupils in my advanced class. It is only 
 relatively that I call them advanced, for the best of them 
 could read only a very little ; but they were all eager to learn, 
 and did learn well. In due time they all became members 
 of the church, and also teachers. For many years they were 
 my chief helpers, both for skilled manual labour and mission 
 work proper. We often observed that those natives who 
 were the first to give up heathenism and profess Christianity, 
 always proved in the end to be the best Christians, while 
 those who hung back to the last were always less satis- 
 factory. 
 
 Lasarus's father had been the chief of Itath, a district 
 about a mile from the mission station. But as he died when 
 Lasarus was a boy, the chieftainship devolved upon his uncle, 
 Luka. When Lasarus reached manhood, the office should 
 have reverted to him, and some of his friends urged him to 
 claim his right. But power is sweet, and so Luka did not 
 offer to resign ; and as he was an able and a popular ruler, 
 Lasarus refused to disturb an arrangement that was working 
 satisfactorily, and hence he let well alone. 
 
 When we settled on Aneityum in 1852 Lasarus was a 
 young man apparently about twenty years of age. He 
 became a very regular, a very diligent, and a very successful 
 scholar. In 1855 he and Ester were married, and I appointed 
 them to take charge of the school in his own land, Itath, 
 where they gave great satisfaction both to' me and to the 
 people. His being the former chief's son went far to strengthen 
 his position and increase his influence. In 1858, when Mr. 
 and Mrs. Paton were settled at Port Resolution, on Tanna,
 
 LASAKUS AND ESTER. 283 
 
 we sent Lasarus and Ester with them as their servants. To 
 the utmost of their ability they performed their duties. But 
 they suffered so much, Lasarus especially, from fever and 
 ague, that we had to bring them home at the end of a twelve- 
 month. From that time forward they lived on our premises, 
 in charge of the young women and girls attending Mrs. 
 Inglis's boarding school or school of industry. In this 
 department of mission work they were very successful. By 
 his prudent and consistent conduct, his kind disposition, and 
 his quiet but dignified manner, he maintained a mild but 
 unquestioned authority over all under their charge. Some- 
 times Ester would have said to Mrs. Inglis, " I am afraid that 
 So-and-so, that girl that came last week, is stealing. I think 
 there are some lumps of sugar going away, and I suspect her, 
 for I am sure that none of the other girls would do such a 
 thing. But I will watch her quietly ; we will not say anything 
 about it just now, but if the thing goes on I will speak to 
 Lasarus, and he will soon stop it." Mrs. Inglis kept all her 
 general stores carefully locked up, but she always left in the 
 safe tea and sugar and sundry eatables sumcient for every- 
 day use, and the girls were put upon their honour as to their 
 honesty, and they invariably behaved well. If this state of 
 things continued, and if proof was found that this girl could 
 not, as the Church of England Catechism expresses it, keep 
 her " hands from picking and stealing," on the Sabbath 
 evening, when Lasarus was catechising the girls, he would in 
 a quiet and apparently accidental manner make some strong 
 and striking remarks on the sin of stealing. There would be 
 no public exposure or no open reproof of any one ; but 
 breaches of the eighth commandment would immediately cease 
 to be observed. In our absence from the island for some
 
 284 LASARUS AND ESTER. 
 
 months, first to New Zealand and afterwards, during another 
 year, to Victoria, they had charge of all the premises and all 
 our property, and on our return everything was found safe 
 and in good condition. 
 
 Christianity has introduced new principles into family life 
 on the island; one of the most prominent of these is com- 
 panionship. In heathenism there was little companionship or 
 sociality between husband and wife; they were not equals; 
 the man was a tyrant and the woman was a slave. It is 
 totally different there now, and few husbands and wives on 
 the island exhibited more of the Christian element in their 
 family relations than Lasarus and his wife ; he was a faith- 
 ful husband, a kind and affectionate father, and one that ruled 
 his own house well. 
 
 He was never strong for heavy work ; but in all kinds of 
 light skilled labour, whether native or European, he was a 
 ready workman. He was also skilful and expert in steering 
 and managing a boat ; from that and his trustworthy character, 
 I often employed him as my helmsman when I was travelling 
 by sea. For some years before he died he was my chief pundit 
 when I was translating or correcting translations. After our 
 return to Aneityum, poor Williamu, who previously had 
 rendered such valuable help in this department of mission 
 work, was of little service to me. And among the natives the 
 number was very limited who could render any assistance in 
 translating. They were good readers and intelligent men, but 
 they would allow almost anything to pass without a check. 
 But Lasarus possessed in a high degree what might be called 
 the critical faculty. If you gave him the ideas, he could 
 always tell you when the sense was clear and the language 
 grammatical. Lasarus felt a deep interest in the translating
 
 LASARUS AND ESTER. 285 
 
 of the Bible : he evidently loved the Word of God. During 
 his latter illness, when I called in to see him or to give him 
 some medicine, I invariably found him either reading the 
 Scriptures or having some portion of them beside him. He 
 had helped forward the work of God very materially on 
 Aneityum, but his life and his labours were cut short. He 
 was still in the prime of life, a little over forty years of age. 
 He was never a robust man ; he was often laid up for a few 
 days or a few weeks with intermittent fever or other island 
 ailments, but during the last year of his life we had been 
 remarking that his health had been unusually good. About 
 the beginning of March, however, a kind of influenza passed 
 over the island ; almost everybody had it more or less severely. 
 Lasarus took it, and was very ill : once and again, however, 
 he was nearly well, but caught cold and relapsed. The week 
 before his death he seemed to be quite better, and was 
 beginning to work. But he got himself wet, and all the 
 unfavourable symptoms returned with increased severity, and 
 never abated till he died on the yth of May 1873. 
 
 He was quite sensible to the last. When I told him that 
 all hope of life was gone, and that Christ was now his only 
 refuge, he called to his wife, while I was speaking, to listen 
 well to what I was saying, as his ears were becoming dull. 
 When I went out she repeated to him what I had said. Yes, 
 he said, it was all true ; he felt he was dying his only hope 
 was in Christ. And having given her one or two brief direc- 
 tions about their property, he urged on her to look well after 
 the children, especially the two youngest. He was never 
 demonstrative as to his religious feelings none of the Aneit- 
 yumese were but there, as elsewhere, there were some whose 
 Christianity was so apparent in their everyday life that no
 
 286 LASARUS AND ESTER. 
 
 one doubted its reality. Lasarus was one of those ; if twenty 
 years and more of unblemished, exemplary Christian conduct 
 be satisfactory evidence, he had that evidence in his favour. 
 Cecil says of John Newton that he has heard him say, when 
 particular inquiries were being made about the last expressions 
 of some eminent believer, " Tell me not how the man died, but 
 how he lived." Lasarus was one of the quiet and faithful in 
 the land, a man of peace, universally respected, esteemed and 
 beloved. I have rarely, if ever, seen among the natives grief 
 for the dead more undoubtedly sincere, or sympathy for the 
 living more certainly genuine or more extensively displayed. 
 
 Ester, as I have said, was the most outstanding woman on 
 our side of the island. She was a woman of high rank to 
 begin with ; she was nearly related to some of the highest 
 chiefs in the land, and this was an advantage to her. Social 
 position tells as much out there as it does at home. The Rev. 
 Mr. Anderson has written two interesting books, the one 
 " The Ladies of the Reformation," the other " The Ladies of 
 the Covenant; " a third might be written on "The Ladies of 
 the Disruption and the Free Church," and a fourth also on 
 " The Native Ladies of the South Sea Mission." Women of 
 royal and aristocratic families have, by their example and 
 influence, done very much to advance Christ's kingdom on 
 their respective islands. Ester belonged to this class of 
 women. When we went to Aneityum in 1852 she was then 
 a girl of sixteen. Her father was not dead, but her mother, 
 heathen-like, had left him and become the wife of another 
 man. Ester had left her heathen relations, had professed 
 Christianity, and was living with Amosa, the Samoan teacher. 
 The first we heard of her was this : A few weeks after our 
 arrival, one day while she was assisting some other Christian
 
 LASARUS AND ESTER. 287 
 
 women to prepare thatch for our house, word came that her 
 stepfather was dying. It was the custom on Aneityum in 
 heathenism to strangle every wife on the death of her hus- 
 band, that her spirit might accompany his to the other world, 
 and wait upon him there as she had done here. Ester know- 
 ing what would befall her mother, threw down the thatch, 
 sprang up in a moment, and ran for nearly two miles with 
 the hope, of saving her mother's life. Christian influences had 
 saved some lives before this time, and it was believed that, 
 had she been in time, she might have been successful. But 
 alas ! she was too late ; her poor mother was strangled, and 
 stretched out beside the dead body of her husband, and both 
 were ready for being carried off and cast into the sea. 
 
 As soon as arrangements could be made for Mrs. Inglis 
 opening her Girls' Industrial Boarding school, Ester became 
 one of her pupils, and was with her for three years. At first, 
 like many high-spirited girls, she was wilful and wayward, 
 but as soon as Mrs. Inglis could speak to her intelligibly in 
 her own tongue, and bring the truths of Scripture to bear on 
 her conscience, an improvement began, and she became singu- 
 larly docile, and her consistent conduct for eight-and-twenty 
 years showed that she had received the truth in the love of 
 it. She had good natural abilities, and became an excellent 
 scholar as far as the three B/s were concerned. She loved the 
 Bible, and along with several other women, in the course of 
 seven years, committed to memory and repeated accurately 
 the whole of the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
 the Epistles of Paul, from Galatians to Philemon both in- 
 clusive that being the whole of the Bible at that time printed 
 in the Aneityumese language. She was a good singer, and 
 often led the psalmody in the church. She was uncommonly
 
 288 LASARUS AND ESTER. 
 
 well handed ; for washing and dressing clothes, and for 
 general housework, she was equal to any white woman. She 
 was particularly well liked by the natives, especially the 
 native women. She was always generous with her food, and 
 that among natives is the most highly appreciated of all the 
 virtues; while stinginess or greediness in regard to food is 
 looked upon as the worst trait of character with which any 
 one could be charged. At first Mrs. Inglis was often annoyed 
 with idle gossiping, native women coming in and sitting in 
 our backyard, especially in the forenoon, when they came too 
 soon for medicine, which was always dispensed at one o'clock. 
 She took counsel with Ester, and they agreed that they would 
 provide some native work for this class of visitors to do. So 
 whenever any woman came likely to remain for an hour or 
 two, Ester would go up to her, give her a banana, or a piece 
 of taro or breadfruit, and say to her, Ak etwak, aiheuc vai 
 nyalc aieJc, um ago nauritai haklin inigki " Oh my sister,'-have 
 compassion on me, and do this little piece of work." Of course 
 the woman complied, and began at once, and wrought on till 
 the bell rang, when she came to me, got her medicine, and 
 went home, well pleased with herself and the treatment she 
 had received. But lazy gossips soon learned to become shy of 
 our premises, and Satan found no idle hands to employ in 
 mischief-making, as described by Dr. Watts. Ester was 
 always grave, though ever cheerful ; and although she was no 
 gossip, yet, as our station was always the centre to which 
 information came, she was always well informed as to what 
 was going on over the island, and when she heard of anything 
 which she thought it was right for us to know, she instantly 
 told Mrs. Inglis, and she again told me. If I thought it 
 necessary, I at once took action, and quietly brought influences
 
 LASARUS AND ESTER. 289 
 
 to bear on the weak or the wicked, who might respectively be 
 the passive or the active instruments of evil, and thus often- 
 times mischief was prevented of which the general public 
 knew nothing. She was well known to all the missionaries, 
 and highly respected by every one of them. Her blythe and 
 open countenance, and her frank and courteous deportment, 
 made her a general favourite ; while, on account of her kind 
 and unselfish disposition, she was especially beloved by the 
 missionaries' children. After the death of Lasarus, she was 
 again very suitably married to Laapayi, a widower, a man of 
 her own age, also a chief and a teacher. They continued to 
 take charge of the girls till we left the island in the beginning 
 of 1877. At that time they were left, along with two other 
 families, in charge of the mission premises. During the 
 vacancy of two years and a half, till the settlement of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Lawrie, Ester's character came out to great advan- 
 tage for conscientiousness and firmness. When a missionary 
 could not be got at home to supply our place, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Watt, of Tanna, were appointed to our station ; but when the 
 case came before the Mission Synod, the other missionaries 
 refused to sanction their removal, lest the Tanna Mission 
 should be injured thereby. The people of my station were 
 extremely disappointed, and while their hearts were sore they 
 said, "We, the people of this station, have gone to assist 
 every missionary on the group ; we have gone as teachers, as 
 boatmen, as builders of houses, as cooks, as servants ; we have 
 gone to do everything for them, and now they will not give 
 us a missionary. What is the use of us looking after the 
 mission house and the mission premises, and the furniture, 
 and keeping everything safe and in good order, when we 
 
 cannot get a missionary to live in them and look after us ? 
 
 T
 
 290 LASARUS AND ESTER. 
 
 Let the houses go to the dogs, and let the pigs look after 
 them." And but for Ester this proposal might have been 
 carried out; but she stood up and firmly opposed it; which 
 for a woman to do, even of her social position, showed courage 
 far beyond ordinary ; and she carried her point. The premises 
 and the property were safe and in good condition when Mr. 
 Lawrie arrived on Aneityum. 
 
 Ester died in 1880. In her last illness everything that 
 skill and kindness could devise was done for her by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lawrie, but it was of no avail. They asked her if she 
 had any message for Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. She said, " Send 
 my kind love to them, and say that I will look for them in 
 heaven." She had nine children; of these three, two sons 
 and a daughter, survived her, and are still living. Her 
 daughter, whose name is Yegreimu, is married to an excellent 
 young man, and she is very much to Mrs. Lawrie what her 
 mother was to Mrs. Inglis. " There shall be a seed to serve 
 Him." 
 
 The object of our mission is to raise up, out of degraded 
 savages, men and women of the type of Lasarus and Ester; 
 and though only a small number may be equal to them, there 
 are on all the islands more or fewer of the natives similar 
 in Christian character, while a leavening process is going on 
 year by year, beneficent influences are in operation, and the 
 evangelisation of the whole group at no distant period is now 
 a moral certainty.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 INHALAVATIMI means literally Man-child, but when used as an 
 adjective it expresses great endearment, equivalent to dearly 
 beloved. As a proper name it is generally abridged to 
 Nalvatimi; and as this is the shortest form, and as it is as 
 good as the other, I shall employ it in this sketch. 
 
 When we went to Aneityum Nalvatimi was a boy of twelve 
 or fourteen years of age. His father, Katipae, was one of 
 the leading men in Isav, a land next to Aname, on which the 
 mission station stood. I at once began a class in the alphabet, 
 and Nalvatimi was the eldest of fourteen boys whose names 
 I enrolled in that class. He was a quiet but rather a soft 
 boy, but as time went on he developed in energy. The class 
 met daily for a twelvemonth ; the progress was steady but 
 not very rapid. At the end of that time H.M.S. Herald, 
 Captain Denham, R.N., came into the harbour at Anelgauhat, 
 on her way to Fiji to survey that group ; but, being prevented 
 by strong head-winds, the captain put in to Aneityum, which 
 he was also to survey, and he improved his enforced delay by 
 going on with that survey at once. Mr. Chimmo, the first 
 lieutenant, who had command of the steam tender attached 
 to the Herald, conducted the survey and laid down the coasts 
 of Aneityum for several miles out to sea. While engaged in 
 these operations he employed several natives to assist his own
 
 292 1NHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 men. Among those thus employed was Nalvatimi, who, with 
 his active and obliging deportment, so took Mr. Chimmo, that 
 he engaged the boy to go with him as his own personal 
 attendant. Some said that Mr. Chimmo wished him that he 
 might show off his young active black servant to his friends 
 and fellow countrymen when he returned home at the end of 
 the voyage, for Nalvatimi was a handsome, well-made, good- 
 looking lad ; his grandmother had belonged to Futuna, so 
 that he had some Malay blood in him. When the survey 
 was completed, and the tender had come to anchor in the 
 harbour, two seamen were appointed to prepare Nalvatimi 
 for the voyage ; they washed and scrubbed him, cropped and 
 combed his hair, and dressed him in a serge shirt and a pair 
 of dark trousers, and then took him to his master, quite 
 civilised looking. "Here he is, sir," said the men, " clean, 
 cropped, and clothed ; what shall we call him ? " I did not 
 learn whether he was named Tom, Dick, or Harry. But if he 
 got a name, it must have been some name of one word, short, 
 easily pronounced, and easily remembered by the sailors ; for 
 I scarcely ever met with a seaman who could tell you the 
 surname of any of his mates. If you asked him the name of 
 any one of them, he would generally say, "Well, sir, I do not 
 know; they always called him Jim," or Jack as the case might 
 be, "but I never heard his other name." It was of little 
 consequence to Nalvatimi what name was given to him, as 
 it was never used. As soon as his father and mother knew 
 that he was to be taken .away by Mr. Chimmo, they were 
 extremely distressed ; he was their eldest child, and they were 
 strongly attached to him. The father came at once to me, 
 asking me to write a letter to the captain, that he might 
 stop the boy from going away. I sat down and wrote a note
 
 INHALAVAT1MI AND THIGANUA. 293 
 
 to Captain Denham, wlio was a good Christian man, a kind 
 friend to the native races, and who during the whole of his 
 stay in those seas took a deep interest in mission work. I 
 sent the letter by Katipae, the lad's father. As soon as the 
 captain had read my note, he gave orders that the lad should 
 be discharged and given over to his father, and then wrote 
 me a very courteous note, thanking me for what I had done 
 and saying that he would allow no boy to be taken on board 
 by any officer without the full and free consent of his parents. 
 During the five-and-twenty years that we were on Aneityum, 
 we had generally a visit of a man-of-war once a year. And 
 it is but just to say that the captains of all these vessels 
 were kind and friendly to the missionaries and their families, 
 and the most of them fully sympathised with the objects of 
 the mission and rendered us every assistance in their power. 
 The natives of Aneityum always looked upon the captain, the 
 officers, and the crew of every man-of-war as their friends. 
 They were, in their opinion, different from other ships, and 
 closely akin to mission ships. 
 
 Nalvatimi returned to school, and made steady and satis- 
 factory progress. We had an industrial school for the young 
 men as well as the young women ; some of them lived on the 
 premises, and some lived at home. By-and-by Nalvatimi 
 came to live on our premises, and, with some others, week 
 about or month about, as the case might be, he was first one 
 of our cow and goat-herds, at another time he had charge of 
 the poultry, and by-and-by he was one of Mrs. Inglis's cooks. 
 It was found to be the best arrangement to change them from 
 one occupation to another, weekly or monthly as the case 
 might require. 
 
 Some time before we left the island in 1859, Nalvatimi was
 
 294 INHALAVATIMT AND THIGANUA. 
 
 married to Thiganua, and, along with Lasarus and Ester, they 
 remained on the premises as servants to Mr. Copeland, and 
 gave him great satisfaction. 
 
 When we went to Aneityum in 1852 Thiganua was a 
 little girl of about ten or eleven years of age. She belonged 
 to an inland district. She was an orphan ; both her father 
 and her mother were dead. She had one brother some two or 
 three years older than herself. Her brother and she came to 
 live with some Christian relations near the mission station ; 
 their inland relations were all heathen. We first knew her 
 more particularly about a year after our arrival, when she 
 came to live with Tutau, a Rarotongan teacher, and his wife, 
 who remained at our station for about a twelvemonth to assist 
 us in the work of the mission. Tutau's wife was an excellent, 
 active woman, but of a quick temper. Thiganua was always 
 timid. One day the teacher's wife had spoken rather sharply 
 to her, and, native-like, she ran off, first to the bush and then 
 to her friends. Tutau's health did not agree with our climate, 
 and shortly after this he and his wife left Aneityum in the 
 John Williams, and went to Lifu, where he soon recovered 
 his health, and Thiganua came to live with us, and stayed 
 with us till she was married. She proved a very active, well- 
 conducted girl, learned to read, write, cypher, sing, sew, wash 
 and dress clothes, and do all kinds of household work. She 
 had an excellent memory, and was one of Mrs. Inglis's class 
 that committed to memory the Scriptures as fast as they were 
 translated and printed. 
 
 In 1864 I stationed them as teachers at Ohuul, one of our 
 principal inland districts, where the people were much scattered, 
 and where both the imparting and the acquiring of know- 
 ledge were carried on under difficulties. Several teachers had
 
 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGAKUA. 295 
 
 laboured there, but all of them with very little success ; con- 
 sequently the natives were far back in their education. The 
 people took to them at once, and the improvement which 
 they effected was marked and permanent. Her influence on 
 the women was great and lasting : their attendance at church 
 and school became more regular, and quarrelling among families 
 grew less; and from its being one of our worst and most 
 backward lands, it became one of our best. We had a number 
 both of men and women from that district who applied for 
 church membership, and who were in due time admitted into 
 the fellowship of the church. For nearly ten years after our 
 return to Aneityum she was one of Mrs. Inglis's never-failing 
 assistants. If any special work had to be done if the mission 
 vessel brought a crowd of visitors, if extra female help was 
 needed, either for an emergency or for a length of time 
 Thiganua had only to be sent for to secure her cheerful, 
 reliable, and well-skilled assistance. 
 
 She was never robust the seeds of consumption were lurking 
 in her constitution but she enjoyed on the whole a fair 
 measure of health. She had six children, four sons and two 
 daughters; five of them died before her, at different ages, 
 from one to six years of age. Her remaining child, a fine 
 boy of five years of age, died a few months after her, of 
 inflammation of the brain, caused by exposure to the sun 
 a not unfrequent cause of death on the island. 
 
 She was intensely attached to her children ; when her fifth 
 child died, she felt the death so much that we were afraid of 
 her mind giving way ; and it seemed to enhance the attractions 
 of heaven to her on her deathbed to think of meeting with 
 her children in glory. 
 
 When we left Aneityum, in December 1871, to proceed to
 
 296 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 Victoria on a visit, she was in rather indifferent health, but 
 nothing serious was apprehended. On our return, however, 
 on the ist of May, after an absence of more than four months, 
 we found her in the last stages of consumption. She was still 
 at the station inland, but we had her immediately brought to 
 a house which they had beside us, to see if anything could be 
 done for her. But alas ! she was beyond the power of human 
 help; all that skill, or care, or kindness could do was to 
 smooth the dying pillow, alleviate distressing symptoms, and 
 render the descent to the grave something less painful. She 
 died in about three weeks. 
 
 She died as she lived. She delighted in reading the Scrip- 
 tures while she was able to read them, and in hearing them 
 read when she became unable to read them herself. But her 
 natural timidity never left her ; she trembled as she entered 
 the valley of the shadow of death ; something like a chill came 
 over her as her feet touched the waters of the mystical Jordan. 
 One might have supposed that she was connected with one of 
 the pilgrim families whom John Bunyan saw in his dream. 
 Mr. Despondency might have been her uncle, and his daughter 
 Much-afraid her cousin, for though, referring to their doubts 
 and fears, they had entertained ghosts, as he confessed, when 
 they first began to be pilgrims, and could never shake them 
 off after, yet the root of the matter was in them, for when 
 " they went up to the brink of the river, the last words of Mr. 
 Despondency were, " Farewell night, welcome day ! " and his 
 daughter went through the water singing, although none could 
 understand what she said. So it was much in the same way 
 with poor Thiganua, for when she was reminded of the love of 
 God the Father, the grace of Christ the Son, and the work of 
 the Holy Spirit ; how God justified the poor publican, how
 
 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 297 
 
 Christ answered the prayer of the penitent thief, and how 
 the angels carried the soul of poor Lazarus into Abraham's 
 bosom, her fears were gradually dispelled and her faith was 
 strengthened, and she expressed a strong desire that, at her 
 death, the angels would come and take her soul to where the 
 Father is, and the Saviour, and the Spirit, and her children. 
 
 Nalvatimi was one of the most scholarly and cultured of 
 our native teachers; he had more of the logical faculty in 
 him than most of them, he had a good gift in prayer, and 
 aimed at method in his addresses. I may insert here a por- 
 tion of a letter written by Mrs. Inglis to Mrs. Kay, dated 
 November i6th, 1868, and which was inserted in the R. P. 
 Magazine for February 1869, in which she says: "Yesterday 
 Mr. Inglis was away preaching at one of our out-stations, 
 about seven miles distant, and the services here were con- 
 ducted by the elders and teachers. Williamu had charge 
 of the first service, and gave a good address. The second 
 service was conducted by Kalvatimi, one of our teachei'S, who 
 also gave a good address. He began by saying : ' Long ago 
 a man of this island went to the missionary to ask to be 
 allowed to go to Tanna in the John Knox, and said that he 
 could speak Tannese, and would help the teachers to speak 
 to the people. The missionary believed him, and allowed him 
 to go. On the next Sabbath day, when the teachers went 
 to speak to the people of the different villages, this man went 
 with them, and when they had spoken, and asked him to 
 speak, he stood up, but his speech was very short. He 
 simply said, " Men of Tanna, men of Tanna, the word of 
 Jehovah is true," and he sat down. At the next village he 
 said the same words, and the same at every village. Now, 
 I am like that man, my words will be very few. I will read
 
 298 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 you a verse in 2 Cor. i. 22. "Who hath also sealed us, and 
 given the earnest of the Holy Spirit in our hearts." A number 
 of you have lately got the seal of baptism on your bodies, but 
 have you got the seal of the Holy Spirit in your hearts ? If 
 you have not, the other will do you no good. When God 
 made the world, He did not first make it and then think 
 about it. No; He first thought about it, and then He 
 planned it, and then He made it. He first made the earth 
 and the sea, He then made the grass and the fruits, and then 
 He made the fishes and the birds and the beasts, and then, 
 when He had made these, and there was plenty of food, He 
 made man, and He saw that everything was good. When 
 the missionary made this church, he did not begin to make 
 it without first thinking, and then marking and fixing the 
 size and the shape. He first got us to clear the ground, and 
 then he measured and marked the length and the breadth 
 and the height, and then we made it as he marked it, and 
 it was a good church. Some of you were seeking the seal of 
 baptism, but the missionary and the elders and the deacons 
 said, " No, you cannot get it just now ; you must wait a little 
 till we see what your conduct is." But you go away, and you 
 shake your heads, and are angry at them, and say, " No, we 
 will not come back to seek it any more." This is not good 
 conduct. You want first to be marked as God's people, and 
 then you will think what sort of people you will be. This 
 is beginning at the wrong end. Think first what a Christian 
 should be. Pray to God to teach you and seal your hearts 
 by His Holy Spirit, and then come and seek to have the 
 mark of God's children on your bodies, and do not behave in 
 this foolish way.' 
 
 " Perhaps I cannot do better than add Williamu's address
 
 INHALAVAT1MI AND THIGANUA. 299 
 
 here also. He was urging them very earnestly to prepare for 
 death, and went on to say ' Nobody lives long on this island. 
 We cannot keep away death. Tlie missionary cannot keep 
 away death. It is in the ground, and we cannot keep it from 
 rising ; and the ships that come here bring those diseases that 
 have killed so many of us ; but we cannot stop them in the 
 sea, and keep them away from our shores. But, if we are 
 prepared for death, it does not matter to us when it comes. 
 It is true we are all Christians as to our bodies, but what 
 good will that do us if we are hypocrites in our hearts ? We are 
 but a few people on this island, but many of us are hypocrites 
 in our hearts. I went to Britain with the missionary. I saw 
 what the land and the people are there. This island, what is it? 
 It is nothing it is just like one's hand ; but Britain, it is just 
 like the great ocean it has no bounds ; and the people are so 
 many, they are like the sand on the sea-shore for multitude ; 
 but they are all good none of them are bad ; they have not 
 two kinds of Christians there as we have here ; they are all 
 one in heart they are all one in conduct. I did not see one 
 bad person all the time I was there. Their conduct is all 
 good just like that of the angels in heaven ' (!!!). This last 
 comparison you will certainly look upon as a piece of Oriental 
 hyperbole. But it was accepted here as literally true. The 
 church was well attended, and the services well conducted." \ 
 Williamu met with few either in this country or in Sydney 
 except the friends of the mission, and these were all un- 
 commonly kind to him, and reasoning on the principle of ex 
 uno disce omncs, he returned home with unmixed admiration 
 for the goodness of our countrymen. Had he lived till now, 
 and read certain numbers of the Pall Matt Gazette, he would 
 have inferred that there was also another class who, if like
 
 3OO INHALAVAT1MI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 any angels, it was those described by the Apostle Jude. Had 
 it been deemed expedient to make him acquainted with the 
 dark side of social morality, my friend, the late Mr. William 
 Logan, author of "Moral Statistics," &c., by lifting the 
 curtain from the streets of our mystical Sodom, which he had 
 so fully explored, could have revealed scenes as repulsive as 
 any of those with which Mr. Stead had so rudely shocked the 
 mawkish sensibilities of modern Christianity. But here 
 ignorance was bliss, and to have increased knowledge in this 
 direction would have been only to increase sorrow. 
 
 But to return to Nalvatimi. After the death of Thiganua 
 he was married to the widow of an excellent man belonging 
 to Dr. Geddie's side of the island. She was a superior 
 woman, and on our leaving the island in 1876, to return 
 home, I appointed them to take charge of the school at 
 Aname, our station, where they remained till the arrival of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lawrie. At that time he did a Very important 
 work. When the arrowroot for the payment of the Bible was 
 made, it was all brought to the station to be dried ; it was 
 only there that the necessary conveniences for doing so were 
 provided. The drying of the arrowroot was a very responsible 
 work. The value of the article depended very much on the 
 skill and care displayed in this part of the process. For three 
 years Nalvatimi, assisted by some other natives, had full 
 charge of the drying of the arrowroot, and it never was better 
 done even when my wife and I were on the spot. Mr. 
 Annand came round, saw it weighed, put up in casks, the 
 casks properly addressed, and all made ready for shipment. 
 
 In one of his Latter-day Pamphlets, written some thirty 
 and more years ago, Mr. T. Carlyle says (as I quote from 
 memory, I do not vouch for the exact words, only the sense) :
 
 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 301 
 
 "At Portsmouth," he says, "an old man-of-war is put into 
 commission for a three years' cruise. She proceeds to the 
 Cape, thence to the Antipodes, or wherever the behests of the 
 Admiralty require her to go. At the end of the time for 
 which she is commissioned she returns to Portsmouth, drops 
 her anchor, and reports herself to the Admiralty. Two of 
 their Lordships go down, inspect her, and depone that all is 
 right on board. Now," says Mr. Carlyle, "notwithstanding 
 the low tone of moral principle in these degenerate times, in 
 this age of shams and hypocrisies, there must be a good deal 
 of truth in that old man-of-war, when at the end of three 
 years she comes back, with the exception of tear and wear, as 
 good as when she went away." 
 
 So it was to us, and to all the friends of the mission, a very 
 satisfactory result, and a strong proof of the reality of their 
 religion, that for three years the whole of our natives made 
 the same average quantity of arrowroot for the payment of 
 the Bible, and the quality equally as good, when they were 
 left solely to themselves, as when we were living in the midst 
 of them. And Nalvatimi's presence and influence had much to 
 do with this result, especially with the quality of the arrowroot. 
 
 Inwaijipthav is a long deep inland valley, opening up into 
 two deep narrow valleys at the top. The valleys are the 
 deepest and the hills are the steepest that are to be found on 
 the island. We had a terribly hard battle to fight there with 
 heathenism. The sacred men were esteemed the most powerful 
 on my side of the island ; the valley was difficult of access, and 
 hence not easy to be visited, and in this way the people were 
 about the last to profess Christianity. Finally they all came 
 in, and I had three schools stationed among them. The central 
 schoolhouse was used on Sabbaths and on Wednesdays as a
 
 3O2 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 
 
 church. I visited the station once a quarter on Sabbaths 
 myself. Every other Sabbath the service was conducted by 
 the elders, deacons, or teachers. During the vacancy things 
 had gone back, and Mr. Lawrie, as soon as he knew exactly 
 how matters stood, placed Nalvatimi and his wife at the 
 principal school, with the view of resuscitating the cause 
 of education and religion in the valley. A new interest was 
 at once awakened. Assisted by his friends and the people of 
 the place, he went vigorously to work ; the schoolhouse was 
 repaired, and a new teacher's house was erected ; the earnest- 
 minded were encouraged, the lapsed brought back to church 
 and school, and the work was going on prosperously, when a 
 providential calamity placed a serious check on the cause. 
 Their house stood on the edge of a stream, close to a steep 
 mountain, but the site was deemed perfectly safe. A storm, 
 however, came ; it rained for days. The ground was thoroughly 
 saturated with water, the brooks swelled into rivers, the wind 
 blew a hurricane, and one night when darkness set in a slight 
 earthquake was felt. Suddenly there was a roar and a crash 
 which awoke the sleeping inmates. It was a landslip up on 
 the mountain above them. Down rolled the avalanche, sweep- 
 ing everything before it and carrying Nalvatimi's house into 
 the stream. Nalvatimi struggled out he knew not how, but 
 his poor wife was killed at once and buried beneath the pon- 
 derous mass. 
 
 Some time after this Nalvatimi offered his services as a 
 teacher for Tanna, and when I last heard of him he was 
 settled in one of Mr. Watt's outlying stations near Kwamera. 
 From time immemorial there existed between the Kwamera 
 district and the district to which Nalvatimi belongs some- 
 thing like a league of hospitality, such as existed in ancient
 
 INHALAVATIMI AND THIGANUA. 303 
 
 Greece, so that he would be safer there, and possess 
 more influence, than anywhere else on Tanna. When Mr. 
 Paton and I visited Kwamera in the Dayspring in 1865, 
 with the view of reopening the Tanna mission after Mr. and 
 Mrs. Mathieson had been driven from the island, Nalvatimi 
 was with us, and greatly facilitated our intercourse with the 
 natives. He was their friend, and they trusted him. Had 
 Nalvatimi gone away with Mr. Chimmo, what a loss it would 
 have been to himself and to the mission. But the labour 
 traffic has deprived us of hundreds of young men who might 
 have been equally benefited and equally useful. But the 
 bones of many of them lie in Queensland or Fiji.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WILLIAMU. 
 
 As Williamu accompanied my wife and me to this country in 
 1860, to assist us in carrying the Aneityumese New Testament 
 through the press, he was well known among the members 
 of the Keformed Presbyterian Church, and to some extent 
 also in the Free Church and elsewhere. A short notice of 
 him will therefore, I believe, be acceptable, especially to those 
 who still remember him. Perhaps more than any other 
 native he was identified with the history of Christianity on 
 Aneityum from its commencement till the time of his death. 
 As I have elsewhere stated, the first attempt to introduce the 
 Gospel into Aneityum was made in 1841. On the 3oth of 
 March of that year the Rev. A. W. Murray of Samoa settled 
 two teachers on Ipeke, the district next to Aname, afterwards 
 my station. Williamu, then a lad of fourteen or so, attached 
 himself to the teachers, along with some other lads of his own 
 age or a little older. Persecution soon began, for these lads 
 were often scolded, and at times beaten, by some of the old 
 chiefs and priests for countenancing the new religion. But 
 Williamu's heart was drawn towards the teachers, and in 
 spite of threats and blows he still clave to Christianity. He 
 received the name of Williamu in this way. The Samoan 
 teachers had a great difficulty in pronouncing Aneityumese 
 words, hence they were eager to change Aneityumese names
 
 WILLIAMU. 305 
 
 into Samoan ones. Williamu is the Samoan form of Williams. 
 A great many of the Samoans took the name of the famous 
 missionary, John Williams ; but as the South Sea natives 
 have only one name, instead of loane Williamu they dropped 
 the John and retained Williamu only. The subject of our 
 sketch being one of the first converts on Aneityum, the 
 Samoan teachers honoured him by calling him Williamu. 
 Williamu is, therefore, not the native name for William, as 
 some have supposed, but for Williams, or of all that could be 
 utilised of John Williams. 
 
 In 1848 the Rev. John Geddie and his wife, and Mr. 
 Archibald, a catechist, and his wife, arrived at Aneityum 
 from Nova Scotia, accompanied by the Rev. T. Powell and 
 his wife, of Samoa, who remained with them for a year to 
 assist in establishing the mission. Mr. and Mrs. Geddie were 
 settled at Anelgauhat, on the other side of the island. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Archibald occupied what afterwards became our 
 station, but they did not remain long in the mission. 
 Williamu attached himself as firmly to the missionaries as 
 he had done to the teachers, and when help at boating or 
 housebuilding was needed his assistance was always forth- 
 coming. At times, when Mr. Geddie could not obtain the 
 requisite native help at his own station, Williamu and a few 
 other young men went round to his assistance and tided him 
 over those early difficulties. 
 
 In 1852, when my wife and I joined the mission, after 
 having been eight years in New Zealand, Williamu, among 
 others, gave us a hearty welcome ; and when we entered our 
 new house a half-finished building of two small apartments, 
 the chief materials for which I had brought from New Zealand, 
 and which Mr. Geddie and I, witli the assistance of the natives,
 
 306 WILLIAMU. 
 
 had erected Williainu, to show his interest in us, brought us 
 a present of a fine large pig of ten or twelve stone weight. 
 
 Three weeks before our arrival, during a visit of the John 
 Williams, Mr. Geddie, assisted by the missionary deputation, 
 had formed a church and admitted thirteen members. Some 
 time after our arrival he saw his way clear to baptize William u 
 and another young man of kindred character named Seremona 
 (Solomon), the first-fruits of the mission on my side of the 
 island. No more were baptized for eighteen months. 
 
 As Williamu lived near the mission station, he availed him- 
 self to the utmost of the means of grace and the opportunities 
 for education. At the Sabbath services, the week-day prayer- 
 meeting, the morning school, the Bible class, and the Teachers' 
 Institution, he was in regular attendance ; and his profiting 
 was in accordance with his diligence. He was among the 
 first of those whom I placed out as teachers. He was a good 
 singer, and acted for a long time as our chief precentor. He 
 was one of the first band of deacons that were elected, and he 
 subsequently became an elder. When we were building our 
 church, which is still standing at Aname though bearing 
 the scars not only of time, but of hurricanes, earthquakes, 
 and tidal waves Williamu was located as a teacher at the 
 extremity of my district, nearly ten miles distant. But one 
 day, when the building was roofed and nearly finished, and 
 was beginning to stand out in its proper dimensions, he paid 
 us a visit. On going into the church, and seeing the progress 
 that had been made, he was so astonished and delighted with 
 what he saw that he ran up and down the building, and 
 leaping every now and again in an ecstacy of joy, cried, 
 " Wauho ! how you have been working here ! We at the end 
 of the island have been doing nothing." Williamu had
 
 WILLIAMU. 307 
 
 wrought remarkably well at the church during the first stages 
 of its erection ; but preparatory and foundation, work did not 
 show like the finishing processes, and hence he was led to prize 
 the work of others more than his own. 
 
 When he arrived in this country he was amazed at what 
 he saw. As he sailed up the Thames he tried to count all the 
 ships, and counted to the extent of about three hundred, but 
 he abandoned the task as hopeless : a fleet of the Newcastle 
 coal craft had just entered the river. When addressing the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Synod in 1860 he said, "This is an 
 extraordinary country of yours. I have seen so much since I 
 came here that I am weak with wonder." 
 
 There were several things that struck Williamu very much 
 in this country. One of these was the remarkable kindness 
 of the people. Of course he was always living among our 
 friends, or the friends of the mission, and was everywhere 
 treated with special kindness ; and he very naturally drew 
 the conclusion that everybody was as kind as those .with 
 whom he was coming in contact. Hence reference was often 
 made in his letters to the kindness he received and the 
 abundance of the food with which he was supplied. He 
 considered it necessary to assure his friends on this point, and 
 he felt that he could do so honestly. There is nothing natives 
 are so afraid of as suffering from hunger, and nothing that 
 they prize so highly as having plenty of food. On our arrival 
 at home we stayed for a short time at my father-in-law's. 
 My wife's brothers and sisters and other friends were gathering 
 in day by day to see us, and there was a generous, though 
 neither an extravagant nor a wasteful hospitality being 
 exercised. Williamu, however, soon began to be alarmed for 
 the consequences. I may here notice in passing, that at first
 
 308 WILLIAMTJ. 
 
 Williamu got his food by himself. He was so shy that he 
 objected to sit at table with us or with others ; but by-and-l>y, 
 when we explained to him that it was causing more trouble to 
 give him his food by himself than along with the family, a 
 sense of duty, and an unwillingness to give any extra trouble, 
 led him to suppress his timidity, and to take his place at the 
 family table; and when there, with an almost intuitive 
 perception of what was proper, he conducted himself as if he 
 had all his life been mingling with good society. So, about 
 the end of the first week, he came to Mrs. Inglis one morning 
 and said, "Misi, will you tell your mother and your two 
 sisters that they must not give me so much food to eat." 
 She said, " Why ? " " Oh," said he, "you know we have been 
 feasting every day now for a whole week, and the food will 
 certainly soon be all done. Tell them, therefore, to give me 
 less, or they will have nothing to give to the visitors who are 
 coming to see us." On Aneityum the natives can get up an 
 abundant feast that will last for one, two, or three days ; but 
 after the food collected and cooked for a feast is consumed, 
 the process cannot be repeated for some time ; and Williamu 
 thought that it must be the same here. But on being assured 
 that there was no danger of the provisions being exhausted so 
 soon, he felt relieved, and continued to take his share in the 
 daily feastings without any misgivings ; and he was, no doubt, 
 glad when he found that there would be no necessity for either 
 himself or the family being reduced to " short rations." But 
 his thoughtful and unselfish spirit was none the less evinced by 
 this proposal. 
 
 He was also much impressed with the goodness as well as 
 the kindness of the people of this country. But here again he 
 drew general conclusions from very limited premises. From
 
 WILLIAMU. 309 
 
 what he saw of the ministers and elders, and their families, 
 with whom, almost exclusively, he was becoming acquainted, 
 he not unnaturally concluded that the whole community were 
 equally good. After our return to Aneityum a young man, a 
 native, went up to Sydney in a trading vessel. He remained 
 in Sydney for some weeks, and lived on board the vessel. He 
 was a sharp, intelligent lad, and observed the state of society 
 around him. When he returned to the island he told the 
 people that it was not true what the missionaries had told 
 them about the white people. There were no good people in 
 Sydney ; they were all bad, there were none of them married ; 
 they drank and swore, and did everything that was bad ; they 
 were worse than the heathen on Tanna and Eromanga. As 
 he went on repeating these statements, the better class of the 
 people were grieved, and some of them came to Williamu to 
 ask if these things were so, and if these words were true. 
 Williamu was as much surprised and shocked as the other 
 natives at these representations, and said to them that they 
 were quite untrue. "I do not know," he said, " where 
 Mataio was when he was in Sydney, or what he saw, but I 
 know this, that I saw none of that conduct, I saw none of 
 those bad people ; I saw none but good people. All the 
 people that I saw were good ; they were all as good as the 
 people of Beretani " (Britain). Comparison could go no 
 further, it could rise no higher. In Williamu 's estimation 
 greater excellence could not be found on earth than was to 
 be found among the people of Beretani. But both were 
 right; the one had seen the very best, the other the very 
 worst phase of Sydney society. Had each of them seen both 
 sides, they might have said of Sydney as Cowper said of 
 London, that it contained
 
 3 I O WILL1AMU. 
 
 " Much that we love, and more that we admire, 
 And all that we abhor." 
 
 But modern Sydney is doubtless better than ancient London. 
 
 He was greatly delighted with the loyal, law-abiding character 
 of the people in this country ; and when the volunteers appeared 
 before the Queen in Edinburgh in 1861 although it was a 
 small affair compared with the review in the same place on 
 the 25th of August 1881, the moral effect of which told upon 
 every government in Europe yet it filled Williamu with 
 admiration. Some one had given him a picture of that 
 review, and he looked at it with delight. Just to think that 
 at the word of the Queen all the young men of the country 
 should assemble before her, and say that they were ready to 
 do whatever she commanded them ! To him a chief, who 
 had often had his patience sorely tried with wilful, stubborn, 
 refractory young men, the Queen seemed to enjoy the most 
 desirable of all the earthly conditions of existence. The 
 thoughts of his heart evidently said, " Oh happy Queen ! Oh 
 model young men ! " 
 
 He greatly admired our jails. They have no such institu- 
 tions on Aneityum ; but he thought it was a capital idea to 
 shut up in a strong, secure house the wayward and disobedient, 
 and to keep them there till they are brought to their senses 
 and become content to lead quiet and peaceable lives, hear 
 the words of the chiefs, and obey the commands of the Lord. 
 
 He was often puzzled with many things which he saw in 
 this country, and I was frequently in the same predicament 
 that Pollock says, in " The Course of Time," he was placed in 
 with the children, when he was called 
 
 " to answer curious questions, put 
 In much simplicity, but ill to solve : 
 And heard their observations strange and new."
 
 WILLIAMU. 3 [ I 
 
 The low position of the sun in the sky in winter was what 
 he could not understand. To him, born and brought up on 
 Aneityum, three degrees within the tropics, where for one day 
 twice every year the sun passes over our heads, and we are 
 among the asldai, the" people who at noon have no shadows, 
 and where the sxin, even at the shortest day, is high up in the 
 heavens to him this phenomenon was perplexing. Hence 
 one day, about midwinter, he came to me and said, "Misi, 
 what is the matter with the sun just now ? For some time back 
 he seems always as if he wished and were trying to get up 
 to the top of the sky, but was not able. He just creeps along 
 low down near the earth, and then sinks into the sea or drops 
 out of sight." This was a simple question, but not so easily 
 answered to one who knew so little of astronomy as did 
 Williamu. 
 
 At another time he would come with a question of social or 
 domestic economy. "Misi," he would say, "can you tell me 
 about this ? On Aneityum there is always plenty of waste 
 land, and if a young man wishes to marry he can go into the 
 bush, choose a piece of land, fence it, dig and plant it, then 
 build his house and bring home his wife. But how does a 
 young man do here ? There is no waste land where he can 
 erect his house. All the land is occupied, not only on the 
 shore, as on Aneityum, but everywhere inland it is the same, 
 up to the very tops of the mountains. The people here are so 
 many, they are like the sand on the seashore." How to deal 
 with our surplus, ever-increasing population is a question that 
 has exercised more minds than Williamu's. But to him the 
 simplest and most satisfactory solution of this complex and 
 difficult problem was emigration to America, Australia, New 
 Zealand, or some of our colonies.
 
 3 I 2 WILLIAMU. 
 
 We had great comfort in Williamu all the time we were at 
 home. The majority of natives who accompany missionaries 
 to this country are spoiled through the well-meant but in- 
 judicious kindness of friends ; they become lifted up with these 
 attentions, and forget themselves. Williamu entirely escaped 
 that danger, but another trial awaited us. Just as the work 
 was being brought to a close, his brain became affected, his 
 mind gave way, and he became partially insane. Most pro- 
 videntially it was not till the last sheet was passing through 
 the press that he entirely broke down. His brain was 
 naturally weak, or rather, he was of that fine, high-strung 
 nervous temperament which, though of the highest value 
 when well, is easily deranged ; and he supplied another illus- 
 tration of Dryden's oft-quoted couplet 
 
 " Great wits to madness nearly are allied ; 
 And thin partitions do the two divide." 
 
 Some time before we left the islands to come home, Williamu 
 had an attack of fever and ague, and every day, as certainly 
 as the fit came on, he became delirious, but the delirium 
 always took a religious turn. He came always into the house 
 in which our young men lived and read the Scripture to 
 them, and then took away a young lad, a cousin of his own, 
 into the bush, and gave him an earnest exhortation to follow 
 that which was good. When the fever left him the delirium 
 ceased. It is not uncommon for delirium^ to accompany fever 
 and ague. Shortly after his arrival in this country he had 
 a slight attack of fever and ague accompanied by delirium. 
 But for two years he continued quite well. For some months, 
 however, before we left this country to return to the islands, 
 symptoms of brain disease began to show themselves, and at 
 last, as I have said, he quite broke down.
 
 WILLIAMU. 3 I 3 
 
 During his illness there were certain aspects of his case that 
 struck me forcibly. He became very timid, very proud, and 
 intensely selfish. When his intellect became clouded the 
 moral nature seemed to be subverted. When the brain 
 became affected and the judgment lost its guiding and con- 
 trolling influence, the moral sense or the conscience evidently 
 became weakened. When Williamu was well he was kind 
 and unselfish in a pre-eminent degree, but when his mind 
 gave way he thought of nobody but himself. I am told that 
 insane people are invariably timid; Williamu seemed to be 
 always more or less in a kind of terror. Naturally he was 
 very humble, now he became extremely proud. His selfishness 
 also was quite a new feature of his character. Formerly, when 
 we were travelling together on railways, without his ever 
 being told, he was the first to look after umbrellas, travelling 
 bags, portmanteaus, and luggage of every kind. But after he 
 became unwell, while he was as active as ever in looking after 
 his own things,' he paid no attention to ours. He would 
 deliberately lift his own umbrella and leave ours lying in the 
 carriage, as if he had had no connection with us. But our 
 experience was not exceptional. When the Rev. John Hunt 
 the celebrated Wesleyan missionary, the apostle of Fiji 
 had finished his translation of the New Testament, the native 
 who had acted as his pundit became quite insane ; not only 
 so, but, as a consequence of his insanity, he abandoned Chris- 
 tianity and went back to heathenism ; he threw off his 
 European clothing and dressed like a savage ; reason was 
 suspended, and he was no longer accountable either to God or 
 to man for his actions. Williamu never went so far, or any- 
 thing like so far, as this. But nevertheless, acting under 
 medical advice, we had to hurry off to the islands, as the most
 
 314 WILLIAMU. 
 
 likely means for securing his recovery ; and this course was to 
 a great extent successful. We had some trouble with him 
 after his return to Aneityum, but after a time he settled 
 down comparatively well. A stranger could have observed 
 nothing wrong with him, but we who knew him formerly saw 
 that he was much altered. Our friends at home thought that, 
 after what he had seen and learned in this country, he would, 
 on his return, be a great help to the mission ; and they were 
 prepared to have allowed him a salary, that he might be fully 
 employed as a native missionary. But God had willed other- 
 wise, and these hopes were never realised. And we felt 
 thankful indeed that he remained quiet, and continued to 
 conduct himself with exemplary propriety. He frequently, 
 as in former days, led the singing, now and again he prayed 
 in public, and sometimes gave an address ; but I durst never 
 employ him as my pundit while translating or revising lest 
 his brain might be thereby affected. He inclined to live more 
 secluded than he had formerly done. But there was one idea 
 which he caught up strongly in this country, and to which he 
 gave practical effect all his life afterwards, and that was the 
 duty of being industrious. "There is no idleness," he said, 
 "in Beretani; every man and every woman works, and that 
 every day too. And why should we be idle here on Aneityum ? " 
 And he practised as he preached. In this way he eschewed 
 the temptations of an idle life, promoted health of body and 
 serenity of mind, had always abundance of food, was always 
 able to help those who were in want, and never needed any 
 help himself. 
 
 He was upwards of fifty years of age at the time of his 
 death. He died on the i5th of August 1878. His last 
 illness was very short only twenty-four hours. He was
 
 WILLIAMU. 3 I 5 
 
 attacked with severe cramps in his feet and legs. These 
 became dead, and this deadness gradually crept over his 
 whole body till he expired. He was in church the Sabbath 
 before his death. The station was vacant, but Mr. Annand 
 was round at Aname preaching for three Sabbaths at that 
 time. After the sermon he asked Williamu to pray, which he 
 did. He also led one of the hymns, both of which exercises 
 he performed well. He was not at the prayer-meeting on the 
 Wednesday afternoon, but came to the mission premises in 
 the evening to see how the arrowroot, which they were pre- 
 paring for the payment of the Bible, was being attended to. 
 He always took a deep interest in everything connected with 
 the Bible. He became ill in the night. On the Thursday 
 he sent one of his friends to Mr. Annand for medicine, but 
 he charged him not to say that he was very ill his native 
 modesty evidently rendering him unwilling to trouble the 
 missionary. In this way Mr. and Mrs. Annand were not 
 made aware that he was seriously ill till they heard the 
 death-wail in the night. Though no report of his last words, 
 if there were any, has reached us, I know, from the character 
 of those around him, what their last words to him would be, 
 that the last words he would hear on earth would be those of 
 prayer and praise ; a prayer for grace, mercy, and peace, from 
 God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ; and the last 
 song he would hear, before he heard the song of the redeemed 
 in glory, would be, "I to the hills will lift mine eyes," or 
 " Rock of ages, cleft for me," or " How bright these glorious 
 spirits shine," or something similar. 
 
 Williamu was a striking example of the transforming power 
 of the Gospel, and of what the Word and Spirit of God can 
 effect in the heart and in the life of the lowest savage. He
 
 3 I 6 WILLIAMU. 
 
 was an intelligent Christian ; he had clear conceptions of the 
 leading doctrines of the Gospel. He was a consistent Christian, 
 and had enlarged views of Christian duty. He had an intelli- 
 gent understanding both of " what man is to believe concern- 
 ing God," and "what duty God requires of man." He was 
 kind, unselfish, and generous. The first money he ever owned, 
 namely, four dollars which he received from a trader for four 
 rare shells highly prized by the natives of Eromanga, and 
 with one of which a trader could purchase a boat-load of 
 sandalwood, he gave as his contribution to the Bible Society. 
 
 In prayer he was reverent, fervent, fluent, copious, and 
 Scriptural ; and he was a good public speaker. It was, how- 
 ever, as a pundit, in assisting me in revising and editing the 
 Aneityumese New Testament, that Williamu rendered the 
 most valuable and abiding services to the mission. Many 
 natives, otherwise active and intelligent, can render very little 
 help to a translator; they fail to see what you want, or, if 
 they see your difficulty, they are unable to tell you how it can 
 be met. But Williamu was quick to perceive the idea you 
 wished to express, and equally ready to supply the word or 
 the idiom that was wanted. In this department of mission 
 work his services were invaluable. 
 
 Our avowed object was to Christianise the natives. 
 Civilisation followed as a necessary consequence. We did not 
 profess to teach the natives any trades. But the work created 
 by the mission developed among them a considerable amount 
 of mechanical skill, and showed that among them, as among 
 ourselves, there was a great diversity of natural gifts or of an 
 aptitude to excel severally in different kinds of skilled labour. 
 In most kinds of native labour Williamu was expert ; but in 
 some kinds of European work he did not excel, while in others
 
 WILL1AMU. 3 I 7 
 
 he did. He was a very poor carpenter ; some other natives 
 left him far behind. But as a boatman, either for pulling an 
 oar or steering a boat, he had few equals among the natives, 
 and very few white men would have surpassed him. 
 
 The power of Christianity to civilise, as well as to sanctify 
 and make men good, was notably exemplified in this case. 
 For politeness he was a perfect gentleman; he was never 
 vulgar or rude, or even awkward, either in company or at 
 table. If a lady entered a room where he was sitting he 
 would be the first to offer her a chair. 
 
 He was a good scholar, as scholarship goes on Aneityum. 
 He was a correct, fluent, and tasteful reader. He knew a 
 little of arithmetic. He wrote a fair hand, and had a special 
 facility for writing letters. "When in this country he wrote a 
 series of letters to his friends on Aneityum, and some to 
 persons here, portions of which I am appending to this 
 notice as affording a vivid picture of the "First Impressions 
 of Britain and its People " on the mind of a South Sea 
 Islander. 
 
 Though only a secondary chief, yet from his intelligence, 
 sobriety of judgment, and general Christian character, his 
 influence in the community was far higher than his social 
 position. 
 
 At the time of his death he was a widower, but he left one 
 fine little boy about ten years of age. His name was Simetone 
 (Symington), so called after the leading ministerial family in 
 the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Simetone died about a 
 year after his father. He had always a very grateful re- 
 membrance of the kindness which he received in Britain. 
 
 We thus see that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is 
 everywhere the same mighty saving power, whether among
 
 3 I 8 WILLIAMU. 
 
 sages or savages, among Jews or Greeks, among Scythians or 
 barbarians, among bond or free. "It is the power of God 
 unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
 , But let no one suppose, after what I have said of Williamu, 
 that his was an exceptional character among the Aneityumese. 
 By no means. On my side of the island alone I could with 
 ease have counted of men and women at least a hundred 
 whose Christian character was as pronounced as his, whose 
 general talents were equally conspicuous, and whose acquire- 
 ments, as far as time and opportunities allowed, were in no 
 way inferior to his. And on Dr. Geddie's side of the island 
 they were as fully advanced as on ours. If ever the Spirit 
 of God was seen working among a rude heathen people, it was 
 on Aneityum. There was never any excitement or any un- 
 usual demonstration, nothing that in these times would be 
 called a revival. Neither Dr. Geddie nor I preached anything 
 sensational, and perhaps too little even of the emotional. It 
 was the simple exhibition of God's Word and the regular 
 observance of God's ordinances that produced the change. 
 In their case " the kingdom of God was as if a man should 
 cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night 
 and day, and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth 
 not how" (Mark iv. 26, 27.) They were not all genuine 
 Christians. The old roots of heathenism were ever and again 
 cropping up. But they were as good Christians as could be 
 reasonably expected in the circumstances. There existed a 
 little leaven of Christianity which more or less leavened the 
 whole lump. There was present the salt of grace which pre- 
 served from putrefaction the whole body of the people ; there 
 was a light of Divine truth among them which shed its illu- 
 minating influence over the whole population, which made
 
 WILLIAMU. 319 
 
 Aneityum a different island from any in the group, and ren- 
 dered it the lona of the New Hebrides. The Word and Spirit 
 of God had transformed those wild, savage cannibals into a 
 quiet, peaceable, intelligent, docile, and affectionate com- 
 munity, a loving and a lovable people.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTEES. 
 
 WHEN we arrived in this country in 1860 I suggested to 
 Williamu that he should write home to Aneityum to some of 
 his friends, and said that I would enclose his letters to Mr. 
 Copeland or Mr. Geddie, as the case might require. This he 
 consented to do. I did not expect that his letters would be 
 either long or interesting. But I knew that, although they 
 should be neither, like all letters written in similar circum- 
 stances and coming from a far country, they would be accept- 
 able to his friends. I had taught him the art of writing, and 
 he wrote a fair, small, copy-hand ; but I was too busy, and 
 had too many other things to attend to, to give him any 
 lessons in letter- writing, or make him acquainted in any way 
 with the principles or the rules set forth in the " Elegant 
 Letter Writer." Beyond a few short notes, he had never 
 written any letters at all. But during the two and a half 
 years that we remained in this country he wrote a great 
 number of letters, and I was surprised to find that the letters 
 were both long, and, to me at least, interesting. As often 
 therefore as I had time I translated the letters, and copied the 
 translations into a book. These have been beside me ever 
 since, and from them I have made the following selection. 
 They are genuine letters, unaided compositions, the simple 
 utterances of the writer's own thoughts. Like most strangers
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 321 
 
 recording the impressions made upon their minds by a country 
 and a people visited by them for the first time, he has made 
 a good many mistakes. But as no one will go to these letters 
 for information about this country, I did not consider it 
 necessary for me to correct these mistakes ; and hence I do 
 not hold myself responsible either for the correctness of the 
 facts or the soundness of the opinions. The letters are faith- 
 fully translated; I have neither added, subtracted, nor amended. 
 I have occasionally left out a sentence or two, or even a para- 
 graph, where I found that substantially the same statement 
 had been made in another letter; I have occasionally transposed 
 a sentence or two for the sake of preserving the connection. 
 The letters were all written offhand. They are all first 
 copies, none of them were corrected and then rewritten, and 
 hence he had sometimes forgotten what he had intended to 
 say, and afterwards brought it in in another connection. The 
 letters are chiefly interesting as showing the first impressions 
 made upon the mind of a native by what he saw and heard 
 in this country, and the ability displayed in recording these 
 impressions by one. of the Christian natives of Aneityum, who 
 are regarded by the special correspondent of the Melbourne 
 Argus, the far-famed VAGABOND (see Melbourne Argus, May 
 1884, "Trip to New Guinea," No. III.), as "the greatest fools 
 and the biggest boors he had met," and who were apparently, 
 in his opinion, injured and not benefited by the missionary 
 teaching which they had received. On this point I leave my 
 readers to judge for themselves.
 
 322 W1LLIAMUS LETTERS. 
 
 To Mrs. Snodgrass, Castle-Douglas. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, Sept. 2otk, 1860. 
 
 My VERY GOQD LABY, I wish you well, and I thank you for your 
 kind present to me, for the shirt which you sent me. It is big and it 
 is good. I have no words to express my wonder. I never saw any 
 kindness like this among my people. I thank you very much for the 
 present. 
 
 I will now tell you a little about my country. Formerly, long ago, 
 when we lived in heathen darkness, we showed no kindness to one 
 another. We were like people who carried heavy burdens on their 
 shoulders. We were a people laden with iniquity, we wrought all 
 manner of wicked works. We never ceased, night nor day, to steal, 
 and rob one another's plantations. We quarrelled, and there was 
 never a year passed over us in which we did not engage in war and 
 kill one another. We had this custom also, that when any man died 
 they strangled his widow. We were earnest in offering up sacrifices 
 to our false gods. We never ceased from doing such things as these. 
 Formerly there were two great epidemics on Aneityum. I saw the 
 one, but I did not see the other. Around the whole island the people 
 died ; they fell like the leaves from off the trees ; old men, and men 
 in the prime of life, and young men and women, and big boys ; but 
 there were no little boys or infants died. We performed heathen 
 rites over them for a while, and threw them into the sea ; but we 
 became so weak that we could not carry away the bodies, and there 
 was no wailing, and no tears were shed, and we ceased to observe 
 those customs by which we showed honour to the dead, the people 
 in the land had become so few. Moreover, we never lived in peace 
 one year. Our land was like a canoe tossed about between the winds 
 and the Avaves. It was this from time immemorial, till the Samoan 
 teachers came and lived among us. But even then we continued to 
 believe in lies, and we were obstinate in resisting the truth. We 
 said, " The Samoans have one way and we have another." But after 
 that the missionaries came, and explained clearly to us the Lord's 
 Gospel of peace, we gave up all these things ; and even those wicked 
 men, whose bodies were always gashed with wounds received in 
 fighting, are now whole and sound, like trees covered with fresh 
 leaves, all the effects of the Gospel of peace. The women are now
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 323 
 
 raised, and they are rejoicing, whereas formerly on account of our 
 mad conduct they were killed round the whole island of Aneityum, 
 so that now the land is like a wilderness, and the people are few in 
 number, from our constantly fighting and killing one another. We 
 are truly thankful for this good word of peace which has put a stop to 
 all those evil practices which we formerly carried on. 
 
 When I came here with Mr. and Mrs. Inglis, and saw this country, 
 I had no words to express my wonder and my joy. There are such 
 crowds of people here ; the houses are all built close to one another ; 
 the land is everywhere so well cultivated, and the conduct of the 
 people is so good ; they all speak so lovingly to one another and live 
 in such peace. Truly this is not the way that we lived among our- 
 selves on the other side of the world. 
 
 My very good Lady, do not despise us. You are very many here ; 
 do have compassion upon us, and let some more of you come and 
 watch over us and instruct us. These are my words, and may the 
 Lord bless you. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Mrs. Dr. Wilson, Glasgow. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, Dec. 8th, 1860. 
 
 MY VERY GOOD LADY, I wish blessings on you. I thank you for 
 your great kindness to Dora, my wife, in sending her the desk. I am 
 very glad, and I thank you very much for your kindness. When 
 Dora sees the present she will be delighted, and she will be surprised 
 at your unexpected kindness, and she will thank you. 
 
 Besides this, I wish to tell you a little about the heathen customs 
 that prevailed on our island before the missionaries came among us. 
 We worshipped false gods ; we had heathen feasts ; we practised 
 witchcraft ; we carried on war and fighting ; we robbed one another's 
 gardens ; we quarrelled ; we said the spirits are powerful to give us 
 all things. They gave us life, and they made the island for us. We 
 sacrificed to them that they might give us plenty of food, and that 
 they might save us when we died. We said there are two ways to 
 Umaatmas (the Land of the Dead) ; the one goes down at the west 
 end of the island, the other goes up at the east end. When the 
 Samoan teachers came among us and explained to us a little of the 
 Gospel, some of us said, " They have one religion and we have 
 another." One party among us said, "That is the religion of their
 
 324 WILLIAMUS LETTEES. 
 
 islands ; " others of us said, " It is impossible to receive their religion 
 and practise it ; it is best to continue and worship the spirits." But 
 the missionaries came and sowed the good seed among us ; they were 
 earnest in preaching the Gospel, and in turning us from our former 
 practices, and in teaching us the way of righteousness. Now we are 
 very glad and very thankful for the grace of God, in that He sent His 
 servants to turn us from the ways of darkness and guide us into the 
 light. At present we are glad and joyful on account of the Good 
 Word. We are now living in peace, and have given up all those 
 things that we formerly practised ; namely, murder, witchcraft, 
 idolatry, robbery, quarrelling, strangling of widows, war, heathenish 
 feasts, and all these wicked courses. We are very thankful. If the 
 missionaries had not come we should soon have been all dead on 
 account of our wickedness. These are my words, and may the Lord 
 bless you. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Lasarus and Ester, Anqityum. 
 
 SCOTLAND, August tfh, 1860. 
 
 MY DEAE FEIENDS, I wish you two well, also Inhalvatimi and 
 Thiganua. I write this letter to you all to tell you about our travels 
 and our health. We are all well just now. When we came in sight 
 of Britain, we sailed along the shore for a whole day, and when night 
 came we cast anchor and slept. On the following morning we sailed, 
 and made for the bay. The ships on the sea around us were like 
 driftwood on the water in the time of a flood. We could not see the 
 shore, it was hidden by the ships. When we reached the bay a 
 steamer came and towed us and brought us into the river. At low 
 tide we anchored, and waited till the tide turned. The steamer then 
 towed us, and brought us into a place where the water was shut in by 
 a wall. We had come as far as from Aname to Anelgauhat. We 
 again lay at anchor all night. In the morning they opened a gate, and 
 we brought the ship into a place they call the docks. Here the ships 
 were so crowded that we could not get far in, and we lay there till 
 the Sabbath was over, and then the ship was brought iuto another 
 place to remain. After this all the missionaries and the children 
 went ashore; but Kausiri [another native of Aneityum who ac- 
 companied the vessel as a sailor] and I remained in the ship till 
 Saturday. Then Mr. luglis came back and took us away, and we
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 325 
 
 three travelled in a thing that runs by smoke. They call it a steam- 
 engine ; it runs far faster than a horse its running is like the flying 
 of a pigeon. We came to the house of Dr. Cunningham, and stayed 
 there over one Sabbath. After that Kausiri went back to the ship. 
 But we took our luggage, and travelled by the railway till we came to 
 Manchester, to the house of the brother of Mrs. Inglis. It is as far as 
 from Aneityum to Efate. We slept there, and on the following day 
 we travelled by railway till we came to Liverpool. Here we went on 
 board a large steamer, and sailed for Scotland, as far also as from 
 Aneityum to Efate. Here we came ashore, and rode in a thing they 
 call a machine, which is drawn by a horse, and came to a place called 
 the Mark of Shennanton [near Newton- Stewart], to the house of Mrs. 
 Inglis's father. They were all living. We stayed there over three 
 Sabbaths, and then took our luggage and went to Glasgow. But on 
 our way we came to the sea (at Girvan), and stayed in the house of 
 Mr. Easton. They were as kind to me as if I had been their own 
 child, and took great care of me, and gave me plenty of food, and 
 spoke kind words to me. The next day we came to Glasgow, which 
 is as far as from Futuna to Efate. There we stayed in the house of 
 Dr. Symington. He is a very good man, and his wife and children 
 are the same. They were very kind to me, and took great care of me, 
 and gave me plenty of food, and gave me a fine room in the house to 
 myself. They wished also to look at me, but I was ashamed and 
 afraid in presence of the people. 
 
 This Britain is a wonderful country ; there is not the like of it in the 
 world. It is all true that the missionaries told us about the things 
 here in Britain. It is impossible for me to explain to you all the 
 things in Britain, unless the letter were a thing that could carry 
 Britain to you, so that the people of Aneityum could see it them- 
 selves. But it is impossible for me to explain it to you by words. 
 The things in Britain are not like things made by the hands of men. 
 Such are the houses, the ships, the roads, and everything. Many' 
 many are the people. They are like the sand on the sea-shore. Every 
 place is like Aname at the time of the Sacrament, when all the people 
 on Mr. Inglis's side of the island, from Isia to Anau-unse, are gathered 
 together. So many are the people, and so great are the crowds in the 
 towns, that it is difficult for them to walk backwards and forwards, 
 or pass each other on the streets, so many are the people. When I 
 am walking with any one, he takes hold of me by the arm, lest I
 
 326 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 should lose sight of him for the crowd in the streets. And there are 
 so many houses. If all Aneityum were covered with a forest, and if 
 every tree were a house, that would not be equal to the houses in 
 Britain. I dare not go about by myself, lest I should not find the 
 house where I am staying. I am weak with wondering at the things 
 which I see. This is my letter to you two. May the Lord bless you. 
 
 WlLLIAMU. 
 
 To Dora, Ms wife. 
 
 SCOTLAND, August 2oth, 1860. 
 
 DORA, My love to you. I write this letter to you to let you 
 know that I am well ; so are Mr. and Mrs. In<;lis, and Mr. Geddie's 
 children. Formerly we were staying in the house of Dr. Symington 
 in Glasgow. Afterwards we travelled by the railway and came to 
 Edinburgh, which is a very great city. Dr, Goold, the son-in-law of 
 Dr. Symington, lives there. He is a minister, and has a great many 
 children. We three stayed with him. They were very good to me, 
 and gave me plenty of food. A gentleman, a friend of Dr. Goold's, 
 took me and showed me through the houses where they make things 
 the house where they make axes and iron tools, the house where they 
 make types, the house where they make pictures, the house where 
 they print books, and a house where they keep most beautiful things. 
 But it is impossible to explain them to you in this letter. 
 
 Moreover, the people of Scotland were meeting every day in a 
 church, and making speeches about a great man who lived in Scot- 
 land long ago ; his name was John Knox [the Tercentenary of the 
 Reformation]. He expelled the false religion and brought in the true 
 religion. They were holding these meetings to keep it in remem- 
 brance that he was the first to establish this true religion ; and also 
 to keep in mind all the good he had done, and also that they might 
 thank the Lord for His mercy, that He had taken away the false 
 religion and had given His Word to them and to us all. 
 
 We three left Edinburgh by the railway, and came to the house of 
 a gentleman, Mr. Rowatt, of Currie-Vale, and stayed there over one 
 Sabbath. Afterwards we again travelled, and came to the house of 
 Dr. Symington in Glasgow, and stayed there. We then went and 
 took farewell of Mr. Geddie's children at the vessel. They sailed to 
 Liverpool in a steamer. From Liverpool they are to sail in a very
 
 WILLTAMUS LETTERS. 327 
 
 large steamer to Nova Scotia. We three bade them farewell. They 
 send their love to you. We left them and returned to the house. On 
 the following day we travelled, and came to the house of a minister's 
 daughter, Miss Symington, Paisley, where AVC took tea. We left 
 there and came on to the house of Mrs. Inglis's uncle and aunt, Kev. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson, Kilmarnock, where we slept. Next morning 
 we again travelled by the railway, as far as if you were to leave 
 Ananie and go twice round Aneityum. We alighted at a village 
 called Thornhill, and travelled in a thing drawn by a horse till we 
 came to the village in which Mr. Inglis was born ; its name is 
 Moniaive. This was as far as from Aname to Anelgauhat. When 
 we came there we stayed in the house of Mr. Proudfoot. Both he 
 and his wife are very kind people. They were both very good to me. 
 On the Friday there was a marriage there, and Mr. Proudfoot and I 
 went to see it. On the Sabbath day all the people were very desirous 
 to hear Mr. Inglis. I had to rise and go out of the church ; my former 
 illness, fever and ague, came upon me. First my legs were benumbed 
 and then my hands. Mrs. Inglis and I went into the church, but she 
 brought me back to the house. My illness, however, was not great, 
 and it has now quite left me. On the next day, the Monday, we three 
 came to the house of Mrs. Inglis's sister, Mrs. M'Geoch, Craignell, 
 near New Galloway. This was as far as from Iteng to Itheg. We 
 slept there. On the following day Ave came to the house of Mrs. 
 Inglis's father, Avhere AVC stayed at first, and AVC are staying here at 
 present. Moreover, Mrs. Symington gave me a dress for you as a 
 token of her love to you. It is put into Mr. Geddie's box. You must 
 take good care of it and not give it away to anybody. My letter is 
 finished. My love to you, and may the Lord bless you. 
 
 WlLLIAMU. 
 
 To Dora, Ms ivife. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, October i$th, 1860. 
 
 DORA, I Avish you Avell. I Avrite to tell you about my health. 
 I am very Avell at present, and so are Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. Formerly 
 Ave three lived in the house of Mrs. Inglis's father, but afterwards they 
 two Avent to a toAvn called Newton-SteAvart, and rented a very fine 
 house for us three. At present we three live here, and a girl, Avhose name
 
 328 WILLIAMU'S LETTEES. 
 
 is Agnes, for a servant. It is a very fine house ; it is large, and has a 
 number of rooms above as well as below. 
 
 I must also tell you this : when we were in Glasgow there was a 
 meeting for three days of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, in Dr. 
 Symington's church. All the ministers and the elders and the 
 missionaries were there, and a great congregation of people. They 
 made speeches about the work of God throughout the world and in 
 Britain. Mr. Inglis stood up and spoke, and explained to them the pro- 
 gress of God's work among the islands, and particularly on Aneityum. 
 When the people heard him they rejoiced, and gave thanks to the 
 Lord for His love and mercy to us all. When he had finished he 
 called upon me to rise and speak. When I rose I was ashamed, and 
 made a short speech and then sat down. When we three were on 
 our way to Britain I never once thought that I would have to speak. 
 I only thought that I would have to look. A great number of the 
 ministers made speeches, and gave thanks to God for His love and 
 mercy. They also made speeches about a revival, and the work of 
 God in different countries. They also spoke about the Reformation 
 300 years ago, the time when they gave up the false religion and 
 embraced the true religion, and became one and prospered. In every 
 part of Britain the people attend church every Sabbath day, and never 
 give over. The people of Ireland and the people of America do the 
 same. They have great reverence for the Lord. There are no 
 heathen here. 
 
 Now, Dora, I will tell you of a present sent you by a lady. Her 
 name is Mrs. Wilson. Her kindness to you has been very great. 
 She has bought you a desk. It is packed in a box sent to Mr. Geddie. 
 Take good care of it, and be strong, and Avrite on paper every day. 
 Also be very careful lest some one should persist in begging it from 
 you, and you should not know its value and give it away. Be sure 
 you take good care of it. You know well that no one can get any- 
 thing like this for nothing. The price of it is great ; and very great 
 was the kindness to you of her who bought it : therefore take good 
 care of it. 
 
 On Tuesday the 2oth September I received your letter, and also 
 the ones from Mathima and Thioka. I read them, and I was glad you 
 were well, and I thank God for His mercy to us all. Be you strong 
 and pray to Him every day without ceasing. 
 
 I like this land of Britain very much. I am in very good health
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 329 
 
 and think I would like to stay here a good while : but I do not know 
 how my heart may continue to feel. I visit a number of houses, and 
 the people give me always good food to eat. I have as much food 
 every day as I can eat. All the people are kind to me, and wish me 
 to go and visit at their houses. May the Lord bless you. This is the 
 letter of me, WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Setefano, a native teacher, an intimate friend of his. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, November 2^th, 1860. 
 
 SETEFANO, My love to you, my brother.* We three received your 
 letter on Tuesday the 2Oth of this month, November. I do sym- 
 pathise very deeply with you on account of the death of your wife. I 
 felt just as you do on account of my child, which the Lord gave me 
 and then took away. I Avas exceedingly grieved, and my heart was 
 like the heart of a dead man. But when Mr. Inglis talked to me, his 
 words refreshed me like water. I thought, and I said to myself, my 
 child is like one calling before me in the way that leads to heaven ; 
 and if I am strong I shall yet see him : whereas had he remained with 
 me I might have been weak and not watched over him carefully in 
 the world, to keep him from those things that are evil. 
 
 1 will now explain to you very shortly about Britain. This is a 
 most wonderful country for everything. They make roads for things 
 that run by smoke and boiling water ; they call them steam-engines, 
 but they call the roads on which they run railways. In places like 
 Mount Nathatahau they make roads underneath the ground, as if you 
 would go in at Itath and not come out till you came to Aname. Now, 
 Setefano, do not think that I am joking. I have travelled eight times 
 along with Mr. and Mrs. Inglis, and seen a great many places, as if 
 you would go to Futuna, and Tanna, and Aniwa, and Eromanga, and 
 Efate, and I have travelled under the ground where it was like dark- 
 ness itself. This is a fine country. There is not a single spot in it 
 that is lying waste. It is all cultivated. The ministers have very 
 fine houses. They are high, and have a great many rooms in them ; 
 and the churches are splendid ; they are like two houses under one 
 roof ; the upper house is called a gallery. 
 
 Moreover, the people of Britain have consulted together, and they 
 have appointed men to protect the'country. They call these men
 
 330 WILLTAMUS LETTERS. 
 
 volunteers. There are twenty thousand of these men. But these 
 belong to the one half of the country only, which is called Scotland. 
 I do not know how many there are in the other half and in all other 
 places. These were all assembled in a city called Edinburgh. They 
 met together and marched before Victoria, the Queen of Great Britain. 
 When she saw them she was very glad. 
 
 Now, you teachers, see that you all obey Mr. Copeland, and do not 
 be obstinate and self-willed, but hear him willingly. If he has no 
 food, see that you, the teachers and the church members, bring him 
 some. Remember me to Filip, and Solomon, and Napolos, and 
 Yamtiu, and Luke, and Petelo, and Hosia, and Nowanpakau, and say 
 that I am not forgetting one of them. Peace be with you all. 
 
 WlLLIAMU. 
 
 To Thioka, and Mathima, an uncle and a half-brother. 
 
 SCOTLAND, Nov. 24^, 1860. 
 
 THIOKA AND MATHIMA, I wish you well. This is my letter to 
 you two, and to all the people of Aname, to explain to you two what 
 I wish you all to do. I wish you to look well after my house and 
 garden, and keep up a good fence round it. The women will gather 
 reeds ; and tell Nako and Niau and Nityok to look after the garden, 
 and weed it neatly. And do you, Mathima, look after my orange 
 trees, lest they be injured ; and be careful also about the house, lest 
 it be burned down ; and do not kindle too large a fire, lest the walls 
 become black with smoke. Moreover, do not be idle, but be strong, 
 and work every day. And do not be thinking every one of you about 
 his own things only, but be helpful to one another ; and do not be 
 quarrelling among yourselves, but live all in peace, and watch over 
 one another, and hear one another's advices. I have told you twice 
 now this, to look well after the pigs, that they do not injure the 
 plantations, and thus break the hearts of the people. Take good care 
 also of the sweet potatoes and the yams. Do not forget about them, 
 but dig and make plantations ; and if they grow well, be kind to 
 Dora and give her some of them. Besides this, be strong, all of you, 
 and go to the school every day, and attend the church, and read in 
 your own houses, and do not sit idle at home and think only about 
 the things of this world. Live in peace one with another, and do not
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 33! 
 
 be soon angry with one another, or quick to revenge injuries, but be 
 kind one to another. 
 
 The people are all very good to me here, and speak very kindly to 
 me, but I do not understand well what they say. I get plenty of food, 
 as much as I can eat. This is an extraordinary country. Many, 
 many, are the houses, and the people, and everything ; and the country 
 is so large, it is like the ocean in extent. But you hear of no bad 
 conduct in any place. The chiefs are all strong to put a stop to bad 
 conduct. My love to you all. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Dora, Ms wife. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, January 4th, 1861. 
 
 O DORA, My love to you. I write this letter to explain things to 
 you, and to tell you that we three are well. Mr. Inglis and I are 
 very busy just now with the translation. While we were on the 
 voyage home we two began and corrected Matthew and Mark, and 
 Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul. 
 And then when we came to Newton-Stewart we began and corrected 
 all these books a second time, and we have not yet finished them. 
 Mr. Inglis has a great deal of work to do. They were repairing the 
 John Williams, and they were collecting money in every place to pay 
 for the repairs. Mr. Inglis had charge of this work in Scotland, and 
 he had to write a great many letters to the collectors to thank them 
 for their kindness to the missionaries in collecting money to repair 
 their ship. Moreover, when the corrections of the translation are 
 finished, he will take it to London, where it is to be printed. 
 
 The cold is very severe in Britain in November, December, and 
 January. When we arrived here in June, it was not cold. But the 
 cold began in October, and snow fell, but it was not much. The 
 water also was frozen and became hard, only it was but little. But 
 when November came the cold was very severe, and a great deal of 
 snow fell and covered all the ground. You could not see any growing 
 thing. It was as if you had spread out white clothes and covered 
 both the ground and the houses with them. But it was very beautiful 
 and very white. You could just see the trees and the houses and 
 the fences. The frost came down and the water was hard. What
 
 332 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Inglis told us is quite true, that the water becomes hard, 
 and when the people go to get water they have to break it like glass, 
 and then get water ; they call this hard water ice. When December 
 came the cold was dreadful, and the water frozen very hard ; even the 
 milk was hard in the dishes. One morning the servant took out the 
 dishes from the breakfast, and left them unwashed till she did some- 
 thing else. When she went back to wash them they were all stick- 
 ing to the table with the ice, and she could not move them. When 
 she saw them sticking fast she laughed, and came and told me, that 
 I might pull them off. But I was afraid lest I should break them. 
 One morning she brought in some water from the well, and set it 
 clown ; I was in bed, but rose about six o'clock that is like at the 
 false cock-crowing and kindled a fire. I took the water pitcher to 
 pour some water into the kettle, but it was hard. I laughed to myself, 
 and then took the tongs and broke it just like glass. Another morn- 
 ing there was no water in the pitcher ; the girl was from home, and 
 had not brought in any. I kindled the fire, and then took the pitcher 
 and went out to the cask that stands at the side of the house, but the 
 water was frozen hard. I "then went into the house, and took a large 
 axe and broke the frozen water in the cask : it was like a flat stone ; 
 after that I got the water. Very great is the cold in Britain in 
 November, December, and January. Your hands get benumbed, and 
 you can do nothing with them. 
 
 Moreover, we three are living here ; but we go to their houses and 
 visit people, and feast with them ; and they come and feast with us 
 three. One day I went along with Mr. Inglis, that he might buy a 
 coat for me. We went into the house where they weave cloth. I saw 
 them weaving. It was wonderful beyond anything you ever saw, but 
 I cannot explain it to you in a letter. Before this I had gone to a 
 house where they make thread, belonging to Mr. Clark of Glasgow. 
 It was a large house, and very high. There were six houses inside, 
 all one above another. I could not express my wonder at seeing it. 
 There were one hundred, yea, I think two hundred people, working in 
 it, both men and women. In conclusion, give my love to the family 
 at Umka, and also to Goai ; and remember me to Mary, and Lathella, 
 and Selwyn. These are my words to you. WILLIAMU.
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 333 
 
 To Mathima, his half-brother. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, January 29^, 1861. 
 
 MATHIMA, I -wish you well. I write this letter to let you know 
 that I am well, and also that Mr. and Mrs. Inglis are well. Formerly 
 we three went to visit a number of large towns; Glasgow, and 
 Edinburgh, and Kothesay, (?) and Moniaive (? ?), and likewise a number 
 of small places. Afterwards we returned to the house of Mrs. Inglis's 
 father and stayed there. Then Mr. and Mrs. Inglis went to the town 
 in which I am writing this letter, and rented a tine house for us three. 
 We three are staying in it just now. It is a very good house. There 
 are a great many rooms in it. There are five apartments below and 
 three above. The walls are smooth and beautiful, and covered with 
 painted paper. Moreover, it is fitted up with lights which they call 
 gas. This gas is first made out of coal, and kept in a vessel like a 
 very large cask, and then it goes under the ground in large iron pipes ; 
 it goes like wind ; then it comes up into the houses and stays there 
 always, and when it becomes dark then they light it every night. It 
 is very very cold in Britain just now, in those mouths when it is warm 
 in Aneityum. And when it rains it is like arrowroot ; it falls in 
 scales, and it is hard ; its name is snow ; and a dew falls which they 
 call frost ; and the water freezes and becomes like glass, and very 
 hard ; and the ground becomes all hard like stone, and the cold is 
 fearful. Still I am well and strong, and can do anything. 
 
 Britain is an extraordinary country for everything, and for the 
 good, upright conduct of all the people, all the married men and all 
 the married women, and all the young men and all the boys ; they 
 work diligently every day. They never sit idle ; young men and boys 
 all work. They are not like the young men on Aneityum. Moreover, 
 there are fine roads in Britain. There is one kind of roads, very 
 broad ones, for carts, and omnibuses, and gigs, and coaches, and cabs. 
 These are things with wheels ; they are drawn by horses, and go very 
 fast. There is another kind of roads for things that go by smoke. 
 The name of this is a steam-engine, but the name of the road on 
 which it goes is a railway. It is made by laying pieces of wood 
 across, and by laying along above these long stones which they call 
 iron. One of these roads is as far as from Aneityum to Efate. 
 
 Moreover, they have made a thing here which they call a telegraph.
 
 334 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 It is made in this way. They erect poles on the ground, and then 
 they fix wires along on the tops of the poles. Then they catch the 
 spirit of the lightning and put it into a box. They can speak to 
 people as far distant from one another as from Aneityum to the 
 Loyalty Islands. They do it in this way. Suppose Mr. Inglis wanted 
 to speak to Mr. Jones on Mare, he would speak to the man who has 
 charge of the telegraph ; he would take the spirit of the lightning and 
 send it along these wires, to convey Mr. Inglis's words to the man on 
 Mare, who has charge of the telegraph there ; he would write down 
 Mr. Inglis's words and give them to Mr. Jones. The words go as fast 
 as a flash of lightning, just at once. My words are done. Peace be 
 with you. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Ester (wife of Lasarus) and Thiganua (wife of Inhalvatimi). 
 (These two families icere living with Mr. Copeland in charge 
 of the mission premises.} 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, July ist, 1861. 
 
 O ESTER AND THIGANUA, This is Mrs. Inglis's love to you two, and 
 her word to you two. She has asked me to write this letter to you 
 two, and to say that she was very glad when she heard by Mrs. Geddie's 
 letter that you two had had a baby each, and that you were nursing 
 them well, and keeping them clean ; and also about the house, and 
 that you are looking well after it. She says, just go on as you are 
 doing, and look well after the house, that she may find all things as 
 she left them. We three expect to return next year. Mrs. Inglis is 
 just as she was on Aneityum. She had a pain in her breast, but she 
 is Avell again. Mr. Inglis is well, and so am I. We three have an 
 excellent house. There are a great many rooms in it, both above and 
 below. But we have only one servant girl. Her name is Jane. But 
 she is equal to five, yea ten, of you women on Aneityum. I say we 
 have just one servant girl, but she looks after the house and every- 
 thing in it. She cooks the food, she washes the dishes, she sweeps 
 the house and she washes it ; she cleans the windows and she makes 
 the beds ; she runs messages and she buys food ; she brushes the 
 shoes and she cleans out the kitchen it is just like another room. 
 She takes care of both Mr. and Mrs. Inglis's clothes, and of mine
 
 WILLIAMU S LETTERS. 335 
 
 also ; she washes them and irons them all herself. Mrs. Inglis does 
 not require to help her. She -works away herself. She is quiet, she 
 never gossips, and she is never angry ; she is never sulky, and she 
 never sits idle. She is not like the women of Aneityum. Quite a 
 band of them go to the water to wash the missionaries' clothes, and 
 they stay there, and bawl out, and laugh loud, and joke one another, 
 and sing songs, and one says, " I am hungry ; " and another says, " I 
 am going to the sea to gather shell- fish;" and another says, "I am 
 sleepy ; " and another says, " I am tired ; " and it is night before they 
 have done. 
 
 Moreover, we went to the house of Mrs. Inglis's brother, his name 
 is James [the late Mr. M'Clymont, Borgue House], and we stayed 
 there four weeks. It is a beautiful large house, with a great many 
 rooms in it, and it is surrounded by excellent fences. He has so 
 many things, I cannot describe them to you sheep, and cattle, and 
 fowls, and a great many servants. We three stayed there, and after 
 we left his house we came back to our own house at Newton-Stewart. 
 We three have a beautiful garden. We have in it potatoes, and 
 cabbage, and turnips, and pease, and parsley, and a great many goose- 
 berries, and currants, and apples. 
 
 Besides this, one of Mrs. Inglis's sisters was married on Thursday, 
 the 4th of July. Her name is Grace [the wife of Rev. D. Kellock, 
 Presbyterian minister, Spencerville congregation, Ontario, Canada]. 
 Mr. Inglis married them. We all met and feasted, and sang and 
 rejoiced. They have splendid marriages in Britain, but I cannot de- 
 scribe them to you in this letter. Mr. Inglis is very busy every day 
 with the translation [of the New Testament]. He is never idle. My 
 love to Mr. Copeland, also to Lasarus and Inhalvatimi and the young 
 men. Peace be with you. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Sabataio (his cousin). 
 
 NEWTON- STEW ART, April ist, 1861. 
 
 O SABATAIO, I wish you well. I received the letter from you two, 
 and read it, and was glad to learn that you were all well. Let us be 
 thankful for the grace of God to us, and that He is keeping us alive. 
 Let us pray to Him daily that He may give each of us a heart to hate 
 sin, and a heart to resist heathenism, and a heart filled with peace,
 
 33 6 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 and a* heart full of light. I am quite well just now ; I have had no 
 sickness except a slight cough, but Mr. Inglis takes good care of me, 
 and gives me medicine. 
 
 They have finished the road here for the things that run by smoke 
 [the Castle Douglas and Stranraer railway]. It was opened in March. 
 The great men who are the owners of it travelled along it first. I 
 went to see them. All the people were assembled. There might be 
 a thousand people there. The running is far faster than that of a 
 horse. The road is as far as from Aneityum to Efate. 
 
 Mrs. Inglis's grandmother died on Wednesday, 2oth of March. She 
 was ninety- one years of age. But they did not bury her soon. They 
 waited till after the Sabbath before they buried her. Mr. Inglis and 
 I attended the funeral. All her relations came. There might be two 
 hundred people present. There were thirty-six machines drawn by 
 horses. They took her as far as from Imtainga to Anau-unse. All 
 the ministers and the elders were at the funeral. I go to the church 
 every Sabbath and worship, and I hear a few of the English words 
 that I know, but I do not understand the preaching. 
 
 Say to the people of Aname [his own land] that I always re 
 member them, and that I wish them all well. Be you ali strong, and 
 work daily. Let no man stroll about, let no man sit idle. O 
 Sabataio, my cousin, do you assist Thioka, and exhort these three 
 young men that they may behave themselves well, and work dili- 
 gently, and dig, and have plenty of food. This is my advice to 
 you all, that you live peaceably ; and if any one stir up a desire for 
 heathenism do not ye follow him, but abhor our former ways. You 
 all know that if we revive the heathen customs "that we practised 
 long ago, we should be rebelling against God. Be you all strong, 
 and work every day, and look well after your lands, that you may 
 have plenty of food. And remember this, that if any one wishes to 
 keep a pig, let him prepare a sty for it and put the pig into it, and 
 not leave it to go at large, lest it break the hearts of the rest of you 
 by its destroying your food. Also look well after the water-course 
 for the irrigation, that it may be always in good repair. But if any 
 one say, "Why is he talking so much about the things of this 
 world ? " I would say, no man can live on stones or on wood. We 
 sustain our bodies only by the food which God freely gives us day by 
 day. But if some one would say, "The things of this world are all 
 vanity," I would say, are not the things of earth the gifts of God as
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 337 
 
 well as the things of heaven, and to be prized and used as His gifts ? 
 This is my word to all of you. f*wish you all well, both men and 
 women. My friends, be you all strong, and pray to God every day 
 that He may have mercy upon you and give you food to sustain your 
 souls and food to sustain your bodies. And pray for me that I may 
 explain correctly the language of our island, and His servant will 
 write it for us. All things are easy to God, and to Him all things 
 belong. This is the word of me, Williamu, to you, Sabataio. 
 
 To Dora, his wife. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, June 2oth, 1861. 
 
 DORA, My love to you. I am thankful that you are well. We 
 are the same, we three are well. I will tell you how we have been 
 getting on. We lived in Newton-Stewart during the winter, but 
 when May came we three and a sister travelled by the railway 
 and came to the town of Dumfries. We stayed in' the house 
 of the minister, Mr. Symington, over the Sabbath. We went to 
 church, and Mr. Inglis preached. On Monday morning we three 
 travelled in a thing drawn by a horse to go to the railway ; a young 
 man named Mr. AVilliam Halliday drove us. We were too late for 
 the railway, and we stayed in the house of a woman whose husband 
 was dead to wait for the next train. The young man and I went 
 away to fish in a river, and when we came back in the middle of 
 the day he went away home to Dumfries; but we stayed till the 
 afternoon, and got a fine dinner, and then went by the railway and 
 came to Currie-Vale, to the house of Mr. Rowatt [the late Bailie 
 RoAvatt of Edinburgh]. We slept there. On the following morning, 
 which was Tuesday, Mr. Inglis Avent to a meeting of ministers and 
 elders, which they call a Synod (the Reformed Presbyterian Synod). 
 They began their meetings on Monday, and continued them till 
 Friday. I went to the meetings, and Mr. Inglis told me I was to 
 rise and speak. I made a short speech. They meet to speak about 
 the work of God in Britain and throughout the world. They met 
 every morning in Dr. Goold's church, and continued their meetings 
 till late at night. They did not go out except to their dinner, and 
 at night every one Avent to his 'own home. On the day that they 
 
 Y
 
 338 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 met, it was not observed that a window was open above ; Mr. Inglis 
 sat under it and caught a very bad cold, which continued for a fort- 
 night, but he is again quite well. While we stayed at Currie-Vale 
 they were very kind to me ; they gave me a little knife, and the 
 daughter of Mr. Rowatt gave me a pair of scissors for you. Her 
 name is Agnes, and she is about the same age as Charlotte [Miss 
 Geddie]. She has a sister whose name is Maggie. She is about the 
 same age as Lucy. And they two have a sister who is about the 
 same age as Elizabeth. They have three brothers. While we stayed 
 there they taught me to sing and to play on the piano. We left 
 Currie-Vale on the Saturday, travelled by the railway, and came to 
 Castle-Douglas. This is the city of Mr. Kay (!!). We remained 
 over the Sabbath, and then went to Mrs. Inglis's brother's [Borgue 
 House] where we stayed one Sabbath. On the Friday after we came 
 to Castle-Douglas there was a great meeting [a soiree] ; the church 
 was full. Mr. Inglis made a speech, and then called upon me to 
 speak. I told them about our heathenism and our folly long ago, 
 and also about our peace and happiness now. Mr. and Mrs. Inglis 
 stayed with Mr. Kay, but I stayed in the house of Mrs. Snodgrass, 
 a lady who was remarkably kind to me, she and her two daughters. 
 She sewed three shirts for me, and gave me a fine coat, and trousers, 
 and drawers. I was just like the child of them three, they were so 
 good to me. These are my words to you, Dora. My love to you. 
 
 WILLIAMU. 
 
 Note. At this time measles were introduced into Aneityum 
 by a trading vessel. The epidemic and its sequelae swept off 
 one third of the population of the island, and among others 
 Dora, Williamu's wife, died. Mr. Geddie's church was also 
 burned down the same year, supposed to be the act of an 
 incendiary. Frequent reference is made to these sad events 
 in Williamu's subsequent letters.
 
 WILLIAMUS LETTERS. 339 
 
 To Mrs. Geddie. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, August 24^, 1861. 
 
 DEAR MRS. GEDDIE, I wish you well. I write this letter to you 
 to thank you for letting me know about Dora's death. But I cannot 
 Avrite well to you on account of my grief, nor can I explain to you the 
 sorrow of my heart. My wife, Mary Ann, and I lived first together. 
 But after she died, when I looked at Dora she was just like Mary 
 Ann, and on this account I married her. But she too is gone from 
 me, and my heart is very sad. But when I sorrow about Dora I do 
 not repine nor question about her death. We are all subject to death 
 and sickness. No one can run away from sickness and death in this 
 world. I am grieved, however, that her life was so short, for her 
 conduct to me was so good. She never grieved or vexed me. She 
 attended to what I said, and she acted towards me in the same way 
 that she did towards you. 
 
 Alas ! for the island of Aneityum. The people are all dying, and it 
 is becoming a wilderness. When we three first received letters telling 
 us that so many of the people were dying we were very grieved. I 
 was also afraid to receive a letter. And when the letters came on 
 Friday last I was out in the garden doing something. When I came 
 in to dinner I went up to Mr. Inglis's study to mend his fire, and 
 saw letters lying on the table. When I looked at them I saw that 
 they were letters from Aneityum. When they two went out from 
 dinner, they went up to the study ; but I was afraid to go with them 
 to hear the letters, and I went and sat in my own room. When they 
 had read the letters they called for me, and told me. We three were 
 very grieved. Oh yes, Mrs. Geddie, I am still very grieved. But 
 since they two have talked to me, and you also have written to me, 
 my heart is resigned, and it says, "It is even so. The Lord has 
 rebuked me and chastised me three times [by the death of his first 
 and second wife and his son], and why should I be afraid of His 
 hand ? " Your words to me, and the words of Mr. and Mrs. Inglis, 
 were soothing to me as its mother's milk to her child. And now I 
 find that it is as you say. Your words are true. 
 
 We three are very grieved about your church which was burned. 
 Woe to that wretched fellow ! His father, the devil, put it into his 
 heart to burn the church, that the hearts of the people might be weak
 
 34-O WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 towards the truth. What could make that foolish man think that he 
 could drag the people of Aneityum back to heathenism, and that, 
 being a fool himself, he could make them all to be fools too, and resist 
 the Avord of the Lord respecting His holy house ? Very great was Mr. 
 Geddie's work in building the church, and he was assisted by all the 
 people ; very great also was their work in building. But that Avorth- 
 less fellow, who never put a hand to it, to go and burn it down. I 
 am very grieved about his conduct. 
 
 Mr. Inglis is very busy just now with the translation. I am in 
 good health, I have no sickness. Mr. and Mrs. Inglis are also \vell. 
 Your words are very good respecting the things which Dora has left. 
 I salute Mr. Geddie. My love to Ella. I mourn with Lathella on 
 account of the death of Mary his wife. Who will take care of his 
 motherless children ? I pity the poor things ! I also sympathise with 
 Mataio for the loss of his wife. This is my letter to you, dear Mrs. 
 Geddie. My love to you, my mother. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Talep (at that time a teacher on Tannd). 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, Sept. loth, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR UNCLE TALEP, I wish you well. I do not forget you 
 for a single day. I write this letter to you to let you know that I 
 enjoy good health every day. Mr. and Mrs. Inglis are doing the same. 
 I write also that I may tell you about my grief. Veiy very great is 
 the grief of my heart for the death of my wife, and also of my rela- 
 tions. The first letter we received told us of the death of Suaing, and 
 Joane, and Viali, and Katipae. Our next letter told us of the death 
 of Nemitangi, and Mala, and Nako, and Netwai, and the rest of the 
 people who had died ; and also that the sea had destroyed some of the 
 houses of the missionary, and many of the schoolhouses, and that the 
 church at the other side of the island had been burned down. This 
 letter came here in July. In August we got letters telling me of the 
 death of Dora, and Mary, and Naraki-inwai, and Mataio's wife, and 
 the rest of the people who had died on the following month. When 
 all this news came crowding on me, very great indeed was my grief, 
 and so was that of Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. Our hearts contained nothing 
 but grief, and we said, " What can this mean ? " But it is the Lord's
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 34! 
 
 Avill towards us, and He is Lord over all men. Tell me if you three are 
 well. Be strong, and pray every day to our Father in heaven for His 
 Holy Spirit, and remember Jesus our Saviour, and let us not be feeble 
 in our minds on account of these things. Let us not call in question 
 His doings. He has chastened us by these deaths, and by the trials He 
 has brought upon us : and He is still rebuking us. Alas ! alas ! for our 
 little island. It is now almost a desert ; the people are nearly all dead. 
 
 Remember me to your wife Elizabeth and your daughter Retia, 
 and say to your fellow-labourers, Matthew and Singonga, that I wish 
 them well. Be strong, my brethren, and let your hearts be estab- 
 lished in love to Jesus your Saviour. Say to your fellow teacher, 
 Yaresi, that I wish him well, and the same to Nakau, his wife. 
 Speak kindly to the Tannese chiefs, viz., Yaresi, and Namaka, and 
 Taura, and Lauaua, and Naka, and Kaipapa, and Namua, and say 
 that the word of Jehovah is certainly true, and that all things on 
 earth are weak to save our souls. Let them be strong towards the 
 Avords of truth, and give up those lying vanities that kill men's souls 
 and send them to hell. Jesus only is the way and the truth, both for 
 us and for the people of every land. Remember me to the missionary 
 and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Mathicson. I am sorry that my friends 
 have not written to me as the missionaries have written to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Ingl is. 
 
 Moreover, Britain is a remarkable country for religion, and for the 
 kindness of the people to one another and to strangers. The people all 
 go to church every Sabbath day without ceasing, and they often meet 
 also on week days. Into whatever house I go, the people are all so 
 kind to me, and seem so glad to see me, but I am ashamed to be 
 looked at. This is indeed a good land. There are such crowds of 
 people here ; the houses too are crowded close together in the towns ; 
 and the country is so large, it is just like the ocean, and yet there is 
 none of it lying waste, there are so many people. But I cannot 
 describe it to you in a letter. Moreover, Mr. Inglis has bought me a 
 beautiful clock. It has a glass door, and in the inside there is a bell 
 which strikes every hour. At one o'clock it strikes once ; at two 
 o'clock it strikes twice and then stops ; at three o'clock it strikes 
 thrice and then stops, and it goes on in this way at every hour till it 
 comes to twelve o'clock, when it strikes twelve times and then stops. 
 Are you two looking after the two yams that I gave you ? My love 
 to you three. May the Lord bless you. WILLIAMU.
 
 34 2 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 To Sabataio. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, September yoth, 1861. 
 
 O SABATAIO, my cousin, I wish you well. I am well at present, and 
 so are Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. We three are living here. But we go to 
 a number of places, and visit the people and feast with them. I have 
 a number of valuable things which the people have given me in pre- 
 sents. The people of this country are so good to me in giving me 
 food. I never ask for anything nor yet for food, and yet I am never 
 in want of anything, as I used to be on our island Aneityum. 
 
 Moreover, I say to you, tell the people of Aname [his own land, 
 where he was chief] that I wish them all well, men and women and 
 children ; I do not forget you for a single day : but I say to you, be all 
 strong, and assemble every Sabbath in the church, and pray to our 
 Father in heaven without ceasing ; and do not be weak-hearted on 
 account of those sorrows which you are now enduring. But think of 
 this, that our days on earth are few, and think of that place where 
 you are to abide for ever. 
 
 Besides this, be strong, and dig, and plant, that you may have 
 plenty of food to eat. Do not sit idle, but look well after the water- 
 course for irrigating the plantations. Do not neglect that. If you 
 neglect the land, and do not work, and if I return, I will not follow 
 your indolent ways ; but I will say that your former conduct was 
 better than your present. Let us cultivate the land, let us leave the 
 old plantations and form new ones, and drain the swamps and make 
 good dwellings. When I come home I wish to build a new house, I 
 wisli you all well, and I long to see you ; but 1 cannot yet on account 
 of the work for which I accompanied Mr. Inglis. 
 
 Be strong, all of you. If any one make you angry, do not take 
 revenge on him, and do not follow his way, but exhort him, and live 
 together in peace, and watch over your conduct, and do not provoke 
 one another to anger. Do not talk proudly, and do not quarrel. Tell 
 Nityok and Mathima to look Avell after my cocoa-nuts, and collect 
 them for oil to me. When I return home I will see whether they 
 have collected them or not. I wish you all to write me a letter, and 
 tell me about things and what the people of Aneityum are doing, and 
 how you are all getting on ; how you are attending the church and 
 the school, and how all the people are behaving themselves, and every-
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 343 
 
 thing about Aneityum. I sympathise with you in all your sufferings 
 and in all your sorrows. 
 
 This is the letter of me, Williamu, to you, Sabataio. My love to 
 you and to all the people of Aname. Be ye all strong. 
 
 WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Napolos, a chief of Aneityum whose wife had died. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, September $th, 1861, 
 
 O NAPOLOS, I sympathise with you, my brother, on account of the 
 death of your wife. I do indeed sympathise with you on account of 
 your grief ; your grief and mine are the same. The sorrow of all of us 
 is the same. I am telling you of my grief, while I am living here in 
 another land. When I first heard that death had come among you, 
 and that so many of the people were dying, and that the two churches 
 on the other side of the island had been burned down, and that a 
 number of the people were becoming weak in their hearts, and that 
 they were going back and observing old heathen practices, and making 
 offerings to their old gods when I heard of all these things my 
 sorrow was very great. I was truly grieved, and I wept ; because 
 when we worshipped vanities long ago, on account of our ignorance 
 of the Lord, He had compassion on us, and sent His servants to us 
 that they might show to us the only good way, even Jesus our 
 Saviour ; and because that now when we know Him Avell we are 
 rejecting Him and reviving those practices which we formerly ob- 
 served. This is wilful disobedience. Why do men think evil thoughts 
 of Him on account of those trials by means of which He has been 
 chastening us, in order that we may obey Him and become like fruit- 
 ful trees ? It is not good for us to be angry with God to whom all 
 things belong and we ourselves also. We must not call in question 
 His doings. The doings of God which we see are mighty. All things 
 and all men belong to God, and He doeth with us what seemeth good 
 to Him. O Napolos, my brother, very great is my sorrow on account 
 of the death of my wife and my relations. But I think the Lord is 
 chastening me that He may send me up to heaven. Why should I 
 rebel and be angry because He is rebuking me ? 
 
 The work of God prospers much in Britain. The ministers never 
 cease to assemble the people, and to speak to them about the work of
 
 344 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 God in all countries throughout the world. They know all about 
 those trials that have come upon you. They sympathise with us, 
 and pray to the Lord for us at every meeting and every day, and that 
 without ceasing. I am grieved on account of the houses belonging 
 to Mr. Inglis which the sea destroyed. They stood too near the sea ; 
 also on account of the church, and the Teacher's Institution, and the 
 schoolhouses. But it was all our doing ; we were sleeping secure, 
 and never thought of the time that these things would come on us, 
 and built our houses on the shore, and forsook the inland districts. 
 But let all the people be strong and rebuild all their houses. Do not 
 let them say that this work pains them, and help Mr. Copeland. You, 
 and Kapos, and Yona, and Katipae, and Luka, and Yamtiu, and the 
 rest of the people. Speak also to the people, and let the chiefs exhort 
 all their followers in every district to work hard, that they may have 
 plenty of food and build good houses for themselves, and keep their 
 dwellings all clean. It is quite true that the missionaries tell us that 
 we do not take'proper care of ourselves. When any one is sick he lies 
 outside at night exposed to the damp and the cold, or else his house is 
 bad, and he breathes bad smells from the rubbish lying on the ground. 
 Britain is a fine country ; the whole country is cleared ; the houses 
 are excellent ; they clear away all rubbish from the ground ; and 
 they work every day, and make their houses and gardens beautiful, 
 and they have plenty of all things. But I cannot write any more to 
 you. This is the letter of me, Williamu, to you, Napolos. My love to 
 you, and to all the people who are living with you. Yours, 
 
 WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Mathima (his half-brother). 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, March 25^, 1862. 
 
 O MATHIMA, My love to you, my brother. I am very well at 
 present. I have a great many clothes, and I wish to make you a present 
 of something, but I cannot just now. I have also a number of English 
 books. Moreover, I am learning to sing at present. A young man 
 comes to teach me. His name is Mr. Vernon. He leads the singing 
 in Mr. Goold's church, where we worship. Mr. Goold is a very good 
 man ; he is very kind to me. Very great is Mr. Vernon's knowledge 
 of singing ; he has taught me fourteen tunes which I know. He also 
 goes over them again with me, that I may have them correct. He has
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 345 
 
 been very kind to me. He made me a present of an instrument which 
 sounds like a natarau [a native flute]. They call it an accordion. 
 It is something like the instrument which Manura made. He also 
 made me a present of a book which teaches us how to sing and 
 play. They call it a music book. Very excellent is the singing in 
 Britain ; and so is all the worship. I am well at present, and so are 
 Mr. and Mrs. Inglis. But Mr. Inglis has not done with his work yet, 
 but they have commenced printing. It is being done in a great city 
 which they call London. We three expect to be home in the end of 
 the year. 
 
 Remember me to Netlmoware and to Yona, and say that I have 
 not forgotten them. Say to them also, Let the chiefs of Aneityum 
 be one in heart and live as brethren. Let their word be one, and 
 their work one also, and let their conduct be consistent. Let them 
 look well after all the people ; let them speak soft words to their 
 young men when they go astray, and bring them back by persuasion, 
 but do not get enraged at them, and beat them, or scold them, or 
 threaten them. We know that God only can punish aright those who 
 refuse to do His laws. My friends, do not be weak in your hearts 
 because you are few in number at present, but be strong and do your 
 parts Avell, as those dwelling in the land, that our island may again 
 revive and prosper, And be strong and help Mr. Copeland, and 
 speak well to all the people, that they look after him, and remember 
 the words where it is said, "The labourer is worthy of his hire." 
 My words are done. Peace be with you. WILLIAMU. 
 
 To Talep (his uncle, a teacher on Tanna). 
 
 NEWTON-STEWART, March 2$th, 1862. 
 
 O TALEP, my best wishes for you. I am very well just now, and 
 so are the two missionaries. The cold is very great here at present, 
 but I am strong to w 7 ork and to walk, and when Mr. and Mrs. Inglis 
 visit their friends I go with them. We go to a great many houses. 
 I do not know well what they say, but I go for the feasting. Very 
 very great was the cold of the winter of 1861. The cold of 1862 has 
 been moderate. I am strong to go to the church every Sabbath and 
 also on week days. I had a cough, and Mr. Inglis was afraid of me,
 
 34 6 WILLTAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 and gave me medicine, and took care of me, and made me stay in the 
 house, and made me put on more clothes in the daytime, and gave 
 me more blankets at night, and I live as they do. In the same way 
 all the people are good to me here in this great land. Such is their 
 way in this land of light. They treat me as if I had been born here, 
 and as if I were the child of everybody in the land, their kindness 
 to me is so great and their treatment of me is so good. They are 
 not kind to me because I am a chief, or for anything they see about 
 me. It is just the way they do in this land of light, from the grace 
 of God in their hearts, and from the peace and truth and goodness 
 which He has given them, and thereby made this land great, and 
 made the people willing and able to believe on His name. We three 
 have gone to a great many places where the people have asked 
 Mr. Inglis to explain to them the condition of other lands, as they 
 wish to hear about their way of living and their conduct. He also 
 told me to speak and explain to them our conduct in the days of 
 heathenism. I speak, and Mr. Inglis interprets in English what I 
 say. I have spoken in eight churches, and explained our heathen 
 customs that we clung to long ago. I spoke before great crowds, as 
 many as are assembled on Aneityum at the time of the communions. 
 The churches were full. 
 
 Moreover, it is good for us people of Aneityum to think earnestly 
 just now, seeing that we have renounced all our sins in the presence 
 of God, and have come to Him to receive eternal life through Jesus 
 our Lord. Talep, my father, I say this to you just now. Be very 
 strong, and seek diligently food for your soul, that is eternal life ; and 
 pray to our Father in heaven every day for His Holy Spirit to abide 
 with you, and love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with all your 
 heart, and read His Word every day that you may know the truth of 
 His Gospel, and explain well this Word of His to those chiefs on 
 Tanna to Yaresi, and Taura, and Namaka, and Lauaua, and to the 
 people who hear a little, and assure them that the Word of God is 
 true, that their idols are lies, that the works of the devil are vanity, 
 that his works bring men to misery, that he deceives us, and wishes 
 that we may all go to his place of torment, that the Lord Jesus is 
 the only true Saviour of us heathens in all lands. Urge the Tannese 
 to be strong and keep hold of Christianity, and not let it go from 
 them ; and let them take good care of their two missionaries, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Mathieson, and not to be angry with them. They two are
 
 WILLIAMTJS LETTERS. 347 
 
 teaching them the Gospel, the Word that will save their souls. Be 
 you and Matthew strong, and assist Mr. Mathieson in his work ; and 
 let your two wives do the same to Mrs. Mathieson, and live all of you 
 in peace. I am thankful to learn that you are all well. 
 
 Great is Mr. Inglis's work on the book, the New Testament, up to 
 this month in which I am writing this letter to you. But they have 
 begun to print it in London, which is the chief city in Britain, and is 
 at the other end of the land. It is, as it were, at Espirito Santo ; and 
 we are here, as it were, at Aneityum. But the proof-sheets are carried 
 backwards and forwards by a railway, a thing that runs as fast as a 
 pigeon flies. We have been a long time here, but our stay will now 
 be short ; perhaps we may be home this year. 
 
 I am very happy living here. I am not crying for Aneityum ; I do 
 not long for any of the things in our land. I am fully satisfied with 
 what I get to eat j I am not in want of anything. I am not as you 
 were when you travelled and went to Sydney. You were so pained 
 with hunger that you longed for the leaves of the trees, and no one 
 gave you anything. It is not so here. Whatever house I go to, of 
 their own accord they say, " How do you do? I am glad to see you ; 
 come and eat something." I have no voice to express my wonder at 
 the conduct of the people in this laud of light. Peace be unto you 
 
 WlLLIAMU. 
 
 To Mathima and Kapos. 
 
 NEWTON-STEWABT, July 28th, 1862. 
 
 My love to you two. I wish you two well. When we three were 
 at the Synod in Glasgow Mr. Robertson of Blairbeth, at whose house 
 we were staying, took Mrs. Inglis and me into his house where he 
 makes cloth the house Avhere he makes cloth out of cotton a 
 very very large, high house. It is six houses inside from the ground 
 to the roof ; they call them storeys. The inside of it is as large as the 
 whole enclosure around our church. It is as wide as from the fence 
 at the back of the church to the road at the trees on the shore. And 
 it is as long as from the fence at the bell-house to the lower fence 
 at the Teachers' Institution. And there is another house joined to 
 it, also a very large house ; it has either six or seven roofs, I forget 
 which. There is a chimney at the side of the house as tall as any
 
 34$ WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 
 
 of the cocoa-nut trees beside the teachers' house. The body of the 
 chimney is as thick as the great inteijith (banyan) tree in Nityok's 
 yard. There are six fireplaces for heating the water that is inside 
 the boiler a boiler like that which used to be between the two 
 islands, between Inyeug and Nahringagas, which came out of some 
 vessel ; but it is long and full of water, under which they make fires. 
 When the water boils it makes a thing to go round which they call 
 a wheel. It goes round like those we saw on the outside of the 
 steamer, but they were small, this one was very large. Moreover, 
 when this wheel is made to go round by the steam of the boiling 
 water, it sets everything agoing in every one of these houses, and 
 the noise is like the noise of a waterfall. Everything is going round 
 in every house, from the bottom up to the top, both the things for 
 spinning thread and the things for weaving cloth. When everything 
 is going round and the wheels are all making a noise, the ground is 
 shaking just as if it were an earthquake. When all things are going, 
 the thread makes itself in one place and the cloth makes itself in 
 another place. None of the people make any with their hands. They 
 just stand, and look, and watch it. None of them spin any thread 
 with their hands, and none of them weave any cloth with their hands. 
 This is the Avay they do in all the places where they make thread, 
 and cloth, and blankets, and everything else. I cannot explain it to 
 you. I cannot write about it. I could not wonder. I stood still and 
 looked. When I went into the house in which they kept their cotton 
 they showed me some that came from Aneityum. They asked Mrs. 
 Inglis if it grew well on Aneityum. When she said that it did, they 
 said, " You ought to plant it ; we wish cotton very much." What do you 
 think of this, Kapos ? I think it will be an excellent thing for us. 
 Do not think it is a little word this about the cotton, I say it is a big 
 word. It has a body in it. There is a young man coming out with 
 us three to explain it to us. Let us be strong and plant cotton, and 
 gather it, and he will buy it from us and give us payment. 
 
 Moreover, when we came back from the Synod to the house in which 
 we lived, we packed up all our things and left the house, and went 
 to live in another house. We did this on the day on which all the 
 people who leave their houses and go to new ones do so, that 
 is on the 26th of May; they call it Whitsunday. It was on a 
 Monday. 
 
 Salute Luka, and Yosefa, and Filip, and all the people of Itath.
 
 WILLIAMU'S LETTERS. 349 
 
 Salute also from me, Beni, and Moana, and Lasarus, Inhalvatimi, 
 and all the people of Aname. Salute also Seremona, and Faresi, 
 and Yawila, aud all the people of Ipeke. I wish them all well. 
 Let them pray for us three. Peace be with them all ; my words are 
 done. WILLIAMU.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 CONCLUSION CLAIMS OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS, 
 ESPECIALLY THE NEW HEBKIDES. 
 
 FOR a long period the Polynesian missions were highly popular, 
 and deservedly so. Tahiti, Hawaii, and the South Seas were 
 the watchwords at every missionary meeting. But for a 
 number of years other fields have been attracting so much of 
 public attention that the South Seas are falling greatly into 
 the background. The continents are swamping the islands. 
 The millions in India, China, Africa, and elsewhere are 
 brought so prominently and so constantly forward, that the 
 thousands in Polynesia are all but thrown into the shade. 
 Those islands, it is said, were very good to begin with, or 
 they may be very well adapted for small churches or small 
 societies, but at this advanced stage of missionary pro- 
 gress, and for our large societies, the large continents, with 
 their teeming millions, are the proper fields on which to carry 
 on missionary operations. When you have continents con- 
 taining hundreds of millions, why direct your attention to 
 islands where the population is counted only by thousands? 
 And then science, commerce, and politics, with plausible argu- 
 ments loudly proclaimed and constantly reiterated, come in as 
 counsellors to a sincere and simple-minded, rather than a 
 shrewd, sagacious, and far-seeing philanthropy ; so that the 
 extent of territory and the amount of population, irrespective 
 of more important considerations, are allowed undue influence
 
 CLAIMS OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 3 5 I 
 
 in- the selection of fields for missionary enterprises. While it 
 is only the merest fringes of those great territories and the 
 merest fractions of those vast populations that are being 
 touched, of what benefit to the work of missions are those 
 untold millions on whom no impression whatever can by any 
 possibility at present be made ? While we are attacking 
 Satan's strongholds in detail, why not attack his weakest 
 points first, other advantages being equal ? And he is greatly 
 weaker on the islands than on the continents. By all means 
 let everything be done that can be done for the continents 
 with their millions, ten times more than is being done, but by 
 no means at the expense of the islands with their thousands. 
 Could we count our missionaries by thousands but alas ! all 
 our European and American missionaries amount only to 
 three thousand ; or could we count our funds by millions 
 but alas ! all our annual contributions amount only to one 
 million and a quarter this mode of reasoning would be quite 
 conclusive : but so long as we send forth our missionaries by 
 units, or at most by twos, and collect our funds by hundreds, 
 or at most by thousands, the most manageable and the most 
 remunerative fields ought certainly to be chiefly cultivated. 
 And when God in His providence is granting ten times more 
 success in most of the islands than He is doing in most of the- 
 continents, and when missions can be carried on in Polynesia 
 at half the cost at which they can be carried on in India, 
 surely the claims of the islands are immeasurably stronger 
 than the claims of the continents. And, did space permit, it 
 would be easy to show that the hopes of science, commerce, 
 and politics would be in a similar proportion more fully 
 realised in the many isles of the sea than in the vast con- 
 tinents of which so much has been said. To scientific men
 
 352 CLAIMS OP THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS, 
 
 what portion of Cook's voyages were so interesting as his 
 descriptions of the South Sea islands? In botanical speci- 
 mens those islands are remarkably rich. Aneityum alone 
 contains about a hundred different species of ferns. When I 
 was thinking of settling on Aneityum, the Curator of the 
 Botanical Garden in Sydney, who had made a voyage on board 
 a man-of-war in the New Hebrides, said to me, " Mr. Inglis, 
 if you would only collect specimens on those islands you might 
 immortalise your name." The entomologist will also find a 
 highly interesting field for his researches. They are teeming 
 with all varieties of insect life. Of shells and sea-fish the 
 numbers and varieties are truly marvellous; while in the 
 many and dissimilar languages, customs, and traditions of the 
 inhabitants of those islands, the ethnologist will find ample 
 materials for extensive and interesting investigations. In a 
 commercial point of view, an island is of far more value than 
 the same space of land, however fertile, in the centre of a 
 continent. The sea is an open highway, and the Pacific is 
 fast becoming one of the greatest thoroughfares in the world. 
 It is surrounded by countries which are rapidly rising in 
 commercial importance. It is the highway between China, 
 Australia, New Zealand, South America, California, and 
 Columbia. It is the greatest whaling-ground in the world. 
 To say nothing of Colonial and British whalers, it is said that 
 400 of the 600 whaleships sent out from the United States 
 are traversing the Pacific. It is only at Christianised islands 
 that any ship is either safe or can calculate on obtaining 
 supplies. As many as seventy vessels have called at Raro- 
 tonga in one year for supplies of wood, water, and fresh pro- 
 visions. For all tropical productions those islands will become 
 like the "West Indies to our Australasian Colonies. Their
 
 ESPECIALLY THE NEW HEBRIDES. 353 
 
 political value to Britain is also great. Where is France 
 intriguing so much at present against British interests as 
 among those islands I France sees how rapidly those colonies 
 are increasing in wealth, and, at the same time, how weak and 
 unprotected they continue to be, and she is lurking in great 
 strength among the islands, ready to seize any favourable 
 opportunity for wounding our empire in that vulnerable heel. 
 The missions in those seas, so far as they extend, are a source 
 of political strength to Britain and the Australian Colonies. 
 Perhaps no equal number of men, in the same position, are a 
 source of more political strength to our Colonies than the 
 hundred Protestant missionaries who are labouring in the 
 South Pacific. But for the moral influence of the missionaries, 
 New Zealand, with her 600,000 colonists, would in all likeli- 
 hood not have been a British colony to-day ; the natives 
 would not have signed the treaty of Waitangi, and the sove- 
 reignty of Great Britain would not have been recognised by 
 the Maoris. New Guinea would not have been annexed so 
 easily had there been no missionaries on the spot. On account 
 of all these and other advantages, as well as of the direct mis- 
 sionary work accomplished and anticipated, we appeal to the 
 churches, and the individual members of the churches that 
 support the New Hebrides mission, for increased funds, in 
 order that we may conquer those islands for Christ; Satan 
 has long held them under his dominion. But we have opened 
 the campaign ; and, if it is vigorously followed up, we have 
 the prospect and we have the promise of ultimate and com- 
 plete success, for "the kingdom is the Lord's," and "the isles 
 shall wait for His law." 
 
 But we require men as well as money, perhaps men more 
 than money for this work, although hitherto for this and all
 
 254 CLAIMS OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS, 
 
 other missions God has given both in very equal proportions. 
 "Very few well- qualified men have ever been refused for want 
 of funds to support them, and seldom has the mission treasury 
 been overflowing and no suitable agents forthcoming requiring 
 support. The Lord has not only supplied funds, but ' He has 
 sent forth men with all the qualifications needed for the work ; 
 and doubtless, in answer to prayer, He will do so in time to 
 come. In the mission-field, as elsewhere, there has always 
 been and there still is a diversity of gifts, but it is the same 
 Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He willeth ; on one 
 is bestowed the gift of tongues, and he is soon recognised 
 among his brethren as a living Polyglot; he can chain the 
 savage spirit of the heathen, as Paul did that of his own country- 
 men, by the simple but magic-like power of their own tongue. 
 On another is bestowed the gift of healing, and he is soon 
 known, like Luke, as the " beloved physician ;" his very shadow, 
 like that of Peter, is supposed to have a health-giving influence, 
 and, on this account the word finds readier access to many hearts. 
 On another is bestowed the gift of government ; like Moses, he 
 can organise and rule, reduce chaos into order, and infuse such 
 principles of scriptural polity into both ecclesiastical and civil 
 institutions as shall conserve truth and freedom to succeeding 
 generations. On another is bestowed the gift of mechanical 
 skill, and tabernacles and temples for the worship of God rise 
 up under his skilful hands as they did under those of Bezaleel 
 or Huram. On another is bestowed the gift of song and 
 music, and like David, he can call forth from ten thousand 
 voices the high praises of the Lord. To another it is given to 
 go down to the sea in ships and do the business of the Lord in 
 great waters ; he is at home on the ocean ; to him the loveliest 
 scene on earth is the isles waiting for God's law, and the most ^
 
 ESPECIALLY THE NEW HEBRIDES. 355 
 
 attractive representation of heaven is the hyaline sea, having 
 its shores lined, as some eminent critics interpret the figure, 
 with the innumerable company of harpers all singing the song 
 of Moses and the Lamb. To another it is given to traverse 
 continents ; like Livingstone, to carry with apostolic zeal the 
 Gospel into the regions beyond where any other missionary 
 has penetrated, and leave behind him at every step the seeds 
 of Christianity, civilisation, and commerce, so that the wilder- 
 ness is made to nourish and blossom as the rose. On another 
 is bestowed the gift of prophecy; he is a Boanerges or a 
 Barnabas, a son of thunder or a son of consolation; when 
 he prophesies, when he preaches Christ as the Son of God 
 and as the Saviour of the world, when he exhibits sin in its 
 nature and in its consequences, and salvation in its origin, in 
 its purchase, and in its application, the heathen as of old are 
 convinced, the secrets of their hearts' are made manifest, and 
 they fall down confessing that God is in him of a truth. To 
 the most there is given a portion of several gifts, no one 
 towering above the rest; prodigies are but few in number, 
 because few such are needed ; ordinary work is best done by 
 ordinary men : such excite no special notice on earth, but the 
 result of their efforts is added to the common stock of the 
 world's benefits, the recording angel inscribes it to their 
 account in heaven, and it is kept in remembrance before God. 
 Every gift is needed in the mission field, none can be dis- 
 pensed with and none are to be despised ; and every man 
 serves God best with his own gift. 
 
 In the South Sea Missions we have had a few very out- 
 standing men, and we have had a large share of fully average 
 men, both in the South Seas and in the New Hebrides 
 missions. But it seems to be a tacitly recognised principle
 
 356 CLAIMS OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
 at present, in all missionary circles, that the highest intellect, 
 the highest scholarship, and the highest general ability must 
 be quietly yielded up to India and to Africa, to China 
 and to Japan, but that for the South Seas nothing above 
 mediocrity is required; to a certain class of students it is 
 looked upon as the reverse of. complimentary to ask them to 
 go to the South Seas. We are still disposed to covet earnestly 
 the best gifts, but we are nevertheless content if we can obtain 
 men possessing the average amount of talent, of scholarship, 
 of piety, and of common sense. With us, however, an in- 
 dispensable qualification for missionaries and the wives of 
 missionaries, is that they possess good health and a good 
 constitution ; that they be able to rough it, and be able, more 
 or less deftly, to turn their hand to anything that may 'cast 
 up. As Dr. Livingstone has well put it, and it holds as true 
 of the New Hebrides as it does of Africa, " The missionary 
 must be Jack of all trades without, and his wife must be maid 
 of all work within." They must both belong to " the working 
 classes." Average missionaries of this type, with their heart 
 fully in their work, and the blessing of the Lord resting in an 
 ordinary measure on their labours, are morally certain of 
 success. They may go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, 
 but they shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing 
 their sheaves with them. 
 
 THE END.