ur two boats and fifty
boxes, for L100. We got on board on the 12th August, but such a gale
blew that we did not sail till the 17th. On the _Clutha_ all was quiet,
and good order prevailed; in the _F. P. Sage_ all was noise and
profanity. The Captain said he kept his second mate for the purpose of
swearing at the men and knocking them about. The voyage was most
disagreeable to all of us, but fortunately it lasted only twelve days.
On the 29th we were close up to Aneityum; but the Captain refused to
land us, even in his boats; some of us suspecting that his men were so
badly used that had they got on shore they would never have returned to
him! In any case he had beforehand secured his L100.

He lay off the island till a trader's boat pulled across to see what we
wanted, and by it we sent a note to Dr. Geddie, one of the Missionaries
there. Early next horning, Monday, he arrived in his boat, accompanied
by Mr. Mathieson, a newly arrived Missionary from Nova Scotia; bringing
also Captain Andersen in the small Mission schooner, the _John Knox_,
and a large Mission boat called the _Columbia_, well manned with crews
of able and willing Natives. Our fifty boxes were soon on board the
_John Knox_, the _Columbia_, and our own boats--all being heavily loaded
and built up, except those that had to be used in pulling the others
ashore. Dr. Geddie, Mr. Mathieson, Mrs. Paton, and I were perched among
the boxes on the _John Knox_, and had to hold on as best we could. On
sheering off from the _F. P. Sage_, one of her davits caught and broke
the mainmast of the little _John Knox_ by the deck; and I saved my wife
from being crushed to death by its fall, through managing to swing her
instantaneously aside in an apparently impossible manner. It did graze
Mr. Mathieson, but he was not hurt. The _John Knox_, already overloaded,
was thus quite disabled; we were about ten miles at sea, and in imminent
danger; but the captain of the _F. P. Sage_ heartlessly sailed away, and
left us to struggle with our fate.

We drifted steadily in the direction of Tanna, an island of cannibals,
where our goods would have been plundered and all of us cooked and
eaten. Dr. Geddie's boat, and mine had the _John Knox_ in tow; and Mr.
Copeland, with a crew of Natives, was struggling hard with his boat to
pull the _Columbia_ and her load towards Aneityum. As God mercifully
ordered it, though we had a stiff trade wind to pull against, we had a
comparatively calm se