'This story may show you that caution is necessary long after the time that a real friendship has commenced and been carried on. We never can tell what may have taken place during the intervals of our visits. I returned to the village, with Mr. Kerr and Mr. Dudley and slept ashore, thinking it right to restore mutual confidence at once; and there was not the slightest risk in doing so.
'Now let me tell you about an island called Ambrym, lying to the south of Aurora and Pentecost, the two northernmost islands of the New Hebrides group.
'Ambrym is a grand island, with a fine active volcano, so active on this last occasion of our visiting it, that we were covered and half- blinded by the ashes; the deck was thickly covered with them, and the sea for miles strewed with floating cinders. We have repeatedly landed in different parts of the island, but this time we visited an entirely new place. There was a considerable surf on the beach, and I did not like the boat to go near the shore, partly on that account, but chiefly because our rule is not to let the boat approach too near the beach lest it should be hauled up on shore by the people and our retreat to the schooner cut off. So I beckoned to some men in a canoe (for I could not speak a word of the language), who paddled up to us, and took me ashore.
'As I was wading to the beach, an elderly man came forward from the crowd to the water's edge, where he stood holding both his arms uplifted over his head. Directly that I reached him, he took my hand, and put it round his neck, and turned to walk up the beach. As I walked along with him through the throng of men, more than three hundred in number, my arm all the while round his neck, I overheard a few words which gave me some slight clue as to the character of their language, and a very few words go a long way on such occasions. We went inland some short distance, passing through part of a large village, till we came to a house with figures, idols or not, I hardly know, placed at some height above the door.
'They pointed to these figures and repeated a name frequently, not unlike the name of one of the gods of some of the islands further to the north; then they struck the hollow tree, which is their native drum, and thronged close round me, while I gave away a few fish- hooks, pieces of red braid, I asked the names of some of the people, and of objects about me, trees, birds, I was particularly struck with two boys who kept close to me. After some time I made signs that I would return to the beach, and we began to move away from the village; but I was soon stopped by some men, who brought me two small trees, making signs that I should plant them.
'When I returned to the beach, the two boys were still with me, and I took their hands and walked on amidst the crowd. I did not imagine that they would come away with me, and yet a faint hope of their doing so sprang up in my mind, as I still found them holding my hands, and even when I began to wade towards the boat still close by my side in the water. All this took place in the presence of several hundred natives, who allowed these boys to place themselves in the boat and be taken on board the schooner.
'I was somewhat anxious about revisiting an island called Tikopia. Once we were there, five or six years ago. The island is small, and the inhabitants probably not more than three hundred or four hundred. They are Polynesians, men of very large stature, rough in manner, and not very easily managed. I landed there and waded across the reef among forty or fifty men. On the beach a large party assembled. I told them in a sort of Polynesian patois, that I wished to take away two lads from their island, that I might learn their language, and come back and teach them many things for their good. This they did not agree to. They said that some of the full-grown men wished to go away with me; but to this I in my turn could not agree. These great giants would be wholly unmanageable in our school at present. I went back to the edge of the reef-about three hundred yards-and got into the boat with two men; we rowed off a little way, and I attempted, more quietly than the noisy crowd on shore would allow, to explain to them my object in coming to them. After a while we pulled back to the reef, and I waded ashore again; but I could not induce them to let me take any one away who was at all eligible for the school. Still I was very thankful to have been able twice to land and remain half an hour or more on shore among the people. Next year (D.V.) I may be able to see more of them, and perhaps may obtain a scholar, and so open the island. It is a place visited by whalers, but they never land here, and indeed the inhabitants are generally regarded as dangerous fellows to deal with, so I was all the more glad to have made a successful visit.
'Nothing could have been more delightful than the day I spent in making frequent landings on the north side of Santa Cruz. This island was visited by Spaniards, under the command of Mendana, nearly three hundred years ago. They attempted to found a colony there, but after a short time were compelled, by illness and the death of Mendana and his successor, to abandon their endeavour. It is apparently a very fertile island, certainly a very populous one. The inhabitants are very ingenious, wearing beautiful ornaments, making good bags woven of grass stained with turmeric, and fine mats. Their arrows are elaborately carved, and not less elaborately poisoned: their canoes well made and kept in good order. We never before landed on this island; but the Primate, long before I was in this part of the world, and two or three times since, had sailed and rowed into the bay at the north-west end, called Graciosa Bay, the fine harbour in which the Spaniards anchored. I went ashore this last voyage in seven different places, large crowds of men thronging down to the water's edge as I waded to the beach. They were exceedingly friendly, allowed me to enter the houses, sit down and inspect their mode of building them. They brought me food to eat; and when I went out of the houses again, let me examine the large sea-going canoes drawn up in line on the beach. I wrote down very many names, and tried hard to induce some young people to come away with me, but after we had pulled off some way, their courage failed them, and they swam back to the shore.
'Two or three of the men took off little ornaments and gave them to me; one bright pretty boy especially I remember, who took off his shell necklace and put it round my neck, making me understand, partly by words, but more by signs, that he was afraid to come now, but would do so if I returned, as I said, in eight or ten moons.
'Large baskets of almonds were given me, and other food also thrown into the boat. I made a poor return by giving some fish-hooks and a tomahawk to the man whom I took to be the person of most consequence. On shore the women came freely up to me among the crowd, but they were afraid to venture down to the beach. Now this is the island about which we have long felt a great difficulty as to the right way of obtaining any communication with the natives. This year, why and how I cannot tell, the way was opened beyond all expectation. I tried hard to get back from the Solomon Islands so as to revisit it again during the voyage, but we could not get to the eastward, as the trade-wind blew constantly from that quarter.
'At Leper's Island I had just such another day-or rather two days were spent in making an almost complete visitation of the northern part of the island-the people were everywhere most friendly, and I am hoping to see them all again join us soon, when some may be induced to.
'It would be the work of days to tell you all our adventures. How at Malanta I picked two lads out of a party of thirty-six in a grand war canoe going on a fighting expedition-and very good fellows they are; how we filled up our water-casks at Aurora, standing up to our necks in the clear cool stream rushing down from a cataract above, with the natives assisting us in the most friendly manner; how at Santa Maria, which till this year we never visited without being shot at, I walked for four or five hours far inland wherever I pleased, meeting great crowds of men all armed and suspicious of each other-indeed actually fighting with each other-but all friendly to me; how at Espiritu Santo, when I had just thrown off my coat and tightened my belt to swim ashore through something of a surf, a canoe was launched, and without more ado a nice lad got into our boat and came away with us, without giving me the trouble of taking a swim at all; how at Florida Island, never before reached by us, one out of some eighty men, young and old, standing all round me on the reef, to my astonishment returned with me to the boat, and without any opposition from the people quietly seated himself by my side and came away to the schooner; how at Pentecost Island, Taroniara (a lad whom the Primate in old days had picked up in his canoe paddling against a strong head wind, and kept him on board all night, and sent him home with presents in the morning) now came away with me, but not without his bow and poisoned arrows, of which I have taken safe possession; how Misial felt sea-sick and home-sick for a day or two, but upon being specially patronised by the cook, soon declared 'that no place could compare with the galley of a Mission vessel, to the truth of which declaration the necessity of enlarging his scanty garments soon bore satisfactory testimony; how at Ysabel the young chief came on board with a white cockatoo instead of a hawk on his wrist, which he presented to me with all the grace in the world, and with an enquiry after his good friend Captain Hume, of H.M.S. 'Cordelia,' who had kindly taken me to this island in the winter of 1861.'
To this may be added some touches from the home letter of August 27, off Vanikoro:-
'I don't deny that I am thankful that the Tikopia visit is well over. The people are so very powerful and so independent and unmanageable, that I always have felt anxious about visiting them. Once we were there in 1856, and now again. I hope to keep on visiting them annually. Sydney traders have been there, but have never landed; they trade at arm's length from their boat and are well armed. It is a strange sensation, sitting alone (say) 300 yards from the boat, which of course can't be trusted in their hands, among 200 or more of people really gigantic.
