mes styled a "savage
island"--an island that lay far out of the usual track of ships, that
had only been discovered a little more than a year at that time, and was
inhabited by a blood-thirsty, savage, cruel, and ignorant race of human
beings, who had renounced idolatry and embraced Christianity only a few
months before. They knew no more of ship-building than the celebrated
man in the moon, and their methods of building canoes were quite
inapplicable to vessels of large capacity. Besides this, Mr Williams
was the only white man on the island, and he had no suitable implements
for shipbuilding, except axes and augurs, and a few of the smaller of
the carpenter's tools. In the building of a vessel, timbers and planks
are indispensable, but he had no pit-saw wherewith to cut these. It is
necessary to fasten planks and timbers together, but he had no nails to
do this. Heavy iron forgings were required for some parts of the
structure, but, although he possessed iron, he had no smith's anvil, or
hammer, or tongs, or bellows, wherewith to forge it. In these
circumstances he commenced one of the greatest pieces of work ever
undertaken by man--greatest, not only because of the mechanical
difficulties overcome, but because of the influence for good that the
ship, when completed, had upon the natives of the Southern Seas, as well
as its reflex influence in exciting admiration, emulation, and
enthusiasm in other lands.

The first difficulty was the bellows. Nothing could be done without
these and the forge. There were four goats on the island. Three of
these were sacrificed; their skins were cut up, and, along with two
boards, converted into a pair of smith's bellows in four days.

No one can imagine the intense interest with which John Jarwin looked on
while the persevering but inexperienced missionary laboured at this
work, and tremendous was the struggle which he had to keep his hands
idle and his tongue quiet; for he was a mechanical genius, and could
have given the missionary many a useful hint, but did not dare to do so
lest his knowledge, or voice, or aptitude for such work, or all these
put together, should betray him. He was, therefore, fain to content
himself with looking on, or performing a few trifling acts in the way of
lifting, carrying, and hewing with the axe.

His friends frequently came to look on, as the work progressed, and he
could not help fancying that they regarded him with looks of peculiar
int