red for L10. And, as if to make me
realize how bare the Lord had stripped me in my late trials, the first
thing that occupied me on board was the making with my own hands, from a
piece of cloth obtained on Aneityum, another shirt for the voyage, to
change with that which I wore--the only one that had been left to me.

The Captain proved to be a profane and brutal fellow. And how my heart
bled for some poor Islanders whom he had on board! They knew not a word
of English, and no one in the vessel knew a sound of their language.
They were made to work, and to understand what was expected of them,
only by hard knocks and blows, being pushed and pulled hither and
thither. They were kept quite naked on the voyage up; but, when nearing
Sydney, each received two yards of calico to be twisted as a kilt around
his loins. A most pathetic spectacle it was to watch these poor
Natives,--when they had leisure to sit on deck,--gazing, gazing,
intently and imploringly, upon the face of the Sun! This they did every
day, and at all hours, and I wept much to look on them, and not be able
to tell them of the Son of God, the Light of the world, for I knew no
word of their language. Perhaps they were worshipers of the Sun; and
perhaps, amid all their misery, oh, _perhaps,_ some ray of truth from
the great Father of Lights may have streamed into those darkened souls!

When we arrived at Sydney the Inspecting Officer of the Government,
coming on board, asked how these Islanders came to be there. The Captain
impudently replied that they were "passengers." No further question was
put. No other evidence was sought. Yet all who knew anything of our
South-Sea Island Traders were perfectly aware that the moral certainty
was that these Natives were there practically as Slaves. They would be
privately disposed of by the Captain to the-highest bidder; and that,
forsooth, is to be called the _Labor_ Traffic,--_Free_ Labor! I will, to
my dying breath, denounce and curse this _Kanaka_ traffic as the worst
of Slavery.

As we came to anchorage, about midnight, in Sydney Harbor, I anxiously
paced the deck, gazing towards the gas-lighted city, and pleading with
God to open up my way, and give success in the work before me, on which
the salvation of thousands of the Heathen might depend. Still I saw them
perishing, still heard their wailing cry on the Islands behind me. At
the same time, I knew not a soul in that great city; though I had a note
of introductio