ither of native cloth or cotton, several of them wearing
hats. They, however, it was evident, did not regard the appearance of
the schooner with satisfaction, and several of them hung down their
heads with apprehension at seeing her. As there was still too much sea
to allow of the schooner going alongside of the canoe, a boat was
lowered, and Elton and two men pulled up to her.

"We are friends; we, too, worship Jehovah," he shouted, holding up his
hands as if in prayer. In an instant the aspect of the whole changed.
Those who had been hanging down their heads lifted them up with a smile
on their countenances, and the man who was standing in the midst of them
exclaimed in return, "Yes, yes; friends--all who worship Jehovah are our
friends!"

Elton was soon on board the canoe. The condition of the crew was truly
piteous. Their last drop of water was exhausted--their last
taro-root-their last cocoa-nut,--yet they were not desponding. They had
done their utmost: they had prayed earnestly for deliverance, and were
calmly waiting the result. Their canoe was in so battered a condition,
that before Elton asked them any questions he advised that they should
remove at once on board the schooner. Though only one of them spoke a
little English, several of them understood what he said. They gladly
assented to his proposal, begging him to take the most feeble first.
These were quickly conveyed to the deck of the schooner, where Charley
and Owen were ready with food and water to administer to them.

It took several trips before they were all safely placed on board the
schooner, and, not long after the last party left the canoe, she slowly
settled down to her platform, from which all on it would soon have been
washed away, even with the sea there was then running.

When the whole party had been carefully attended to, Charley inquired by
what means they had been brought into the condition in which they had
been found. The chief man among them answered in broken but still
intelligible English, that he was a native missionary, that he and his
companions, two of whom were catechists and one a schoolmaster, had
started to visit an island to the westward, which they had expected to
reach in a couple of days, but that they were caught in a gale, and
their mast and sail being carried away they were driven past it, and
onward before the gale utterly unable to return, or even to stop their
frail vessel.

Day after day they had be