at
some distance apart, by a strong platform, which serves as a deck. In
the centre is a house with a flat roof on which the chiefs stand. The
sail is triangular, and formed of matting, and long oars are also used,
worked on either side. These canoes carry a hundred men or more, and
make long voyages, often to Fiji, on the east, and lo! the Navigators
Islands, on the north. When sailing forth for war covered with armed
men, blowing conch-shells and flourishing their clubs and spears, they
have a very formidable appearance. Many smaller single canoes came off
to us ringing fruits and fowl of all sorts. They are a very fine race
of men, taller than most Englishmen, and well formed and of a light
healthy brown colour. They come on board in great numbers, and laugh,
and appear to be well disposed. The Captain's suspicions are soon
lulled, and so are Golding's. He wishes to trade with them for
cocoa-nut oil and other articles. Several of our men ask leave to go on
shore, and the captain allows them.

Just as they have gone off, Joseph Bent comes on deck. He has, he tells
me, been living on shore here for some time, and knows the people.
Notwithstanding their pleasant manners and handsome figures and
countenances, they are treacherous in the extreme. He tells that of
which I have not before heard, that missionaries have already been sent
out to these seas; that some were landed on this very island, of whom
three were killed, and the rest driven away. Some, strange to say, were
in King George's Islands while we were there, but we heard not of them
nor they of us. Indeed, I fear that our captain would have taken but
little interest in the matter, though he might have shown those poor
banished ones, as countrymen, some of the courtesies of life. Thus I
see that people may visit a place, and fancy that they know all about
it, and yet be very ignorant of what is going on within. Other
missionaries have gone, so says Bent, to the Marquesas Islands. We
heard nothing of them; indeed, our captain laughs at the notion of such
savages being turned into Christians.

"Who can this Bent really be?" I have asked myself more than once. For
one so young he knows much about these seas, and what has taken place
here. While I have been thinking how good a thing it would be to have
missionaries sent out among them, I find that people at home have
already done so, though as yet to no purpose, as far as man can see.
The people