ng to our supporters
burning cocoanut and breadfruit trees and plantations. Still our people
refused to fight, and kept near to protect us. Then all the leading men
assembled to talk it over. Most were for peace, but some insisted upon
burning our house and driving us away or killing us, that they might be
left to live as they had hitherto done. At last a Sacred Man, a Chief
who had been on Tanna when the Curacoa punished the murderers and
robbers, but protected the villages of the friendly Natives there, stood
up and spoke in our defense, and warned them what might happen; and
other three, who had been under my instruction on Tanna, declared
themselves to be the friends of Jehovah and of His Missionary. Finally,
the Sacred Man rose again, and showed them rows of beautiful white
shells strung round his left arm, saying--

"Nowar, the great Chief at Port Resolution on Tanna, when he saw that
Missi and his wife could not be kept there, took me to his heart, and
pledged me by these, the shells of his office as Chief, taken from his
own arm and bound on mine, to protect them from all harm. He told me to
declare to the men of Aniwa that if the Missi be injured or slain, he
and his warriors will come from Tanna and take the full revenge in
blood." This turned the scale. The meeting closed in our favor.

Close on the heels of this, another and a rather perplexing incident
befell us. A party of Heathens assembled and made a great display of
fishing on the Lord's Day, in contempt of the practice of the men on
Jehovah's side, threatening also to waylay the Teachers and myself in
our village circuits. A meeting was held by the Christian party, at the
close of the Sabbath Services. All who wished to serve Jehovah were to
come to my house next morning, unarmed, and accompany me on a visit to
our enemies, that we might talk and reason together with them. By
daybreak, the Chiefs and nearly eighty men assembled at the Mission
House, declaring that they were on Jehovah's side, and wished to go with
me. But, alas! they refused to lay down their arms, or leave them
behind; nor would they either refrain from going or suffer me to go
alone. Pledging them to peace, I was reluctantly placed at their head,
and we marched off to the village of the unfriendly party.

The villagers were greatly alarmed. The Chief's two sons came forth with
every available man to meet us. That whole day was consumed in talking
and speechifying, sometimes chantin