o find that we had been thrown on an
island inhabited by these Christian people, instead of such savages as
those we had before met with. They supplied us with as many cocoanuts
as they could spare. The missionary was instructing them how to make
cocoanut oil, that they might be able to purchase with it such articles
as they required, I may here remark that there are now very many islands
which can rarely be visited by English missionaries, where native
teachers have been the means of producing similar results. The next day
we fell in with another similar island, in which a native teacher had a
short time before landed. He had not been there more than a month or
two when a vessel was wrecked which had some time before carried off
several of the natives, and, undoubtedly, the only one of her crew who
reached the shore would have been put to death had it not been for his
interference. He not only saved the man's life, but endeavoured to
instruct him in the truths of religion. For this, however, the fellow
was far from grateful, for by his conduct he did much to impede the
efforts of the teacher. The latter, when we went on shore, entreated us
to take the man, who called himself Sam Pest, away with us. Harry, for
the sake of the teacher, undertook to do this, if Pest was willing to
go. When the question was put to him, he said that he had no objection,
provided we would land him at some other island where he might do as he
pleased. Harry would make no promise as to where he would land him,
notwithstanding which the man came willingly on board; and we bade
farewell to the missionary and his flock. Sam Pest had been knocking
about the Pacific for the last twenty years he told me, sometimes on
board whalers, at others serving in smaller craft, frequently living on
shore among the heathen natives. He was, I found, a regular
beachcomber--a name generally given to the vagabond white men who are
scattered about in numbers among the islands of the Pacific, to the
great detriment of the natives, as by the bad example they set them they
interfere much with the proceedings of the missionaries. Pest was not
so bad, perhaps, as many; he had frank manners, was certainly no
hypocrite, for he was not at all ashamed of the life he had led. He had
served on board vessels engaged in carrying off natives to work in the
mines of Peru, and he gave me many accounts of the atrocious ways in
which they had been kidnapped. Sometimes th