things, of
bones. We soon learned from the young chief how to work in the fields,
and to do a number of things, and it was a pleasure to work for him, he
was always so good-natured and kind. By degrees, too, I learned his
language, though Bill could not make much hand of it. I wanted to know
how it was that he and his people had become Christians, and where the
missionary lived who had taught them. At last I spoke well enough, with
the help of signs, to ask him. I should have said that his name was
Matua. He told me also, with signs and words, that the missionary lived
in an island some way off, and that he, Matua, had been there several
times, and was soon going again to fetch a native missionary, or a
preaching man; that one had been on the island, but that he was a very
old man, and had died some time before we came. He told me that he had
a canoe preparing for the voyage. I asked him if he would let us go
with him, for that I should like to see the missionary, who was a
countryman of mine, and that I might, through him, write home to my
friends in England.

"Would you like to go to them again, or live on with me?" he asked.

"I like you very much, but I love my mother and brothers and sisters
much more, and if I have the chance, I shall try to go back to them," I
answered.

"Very right," he said, "but I shall grieve to lose you."

The canoe was, at the time we first saw it, nearly finished. It was
built like the houses, without a single nail, but all the planks were
sewed together with sennit. It was about forty feet long, and scarcely
thirty inches wide. It had a gunwale, and ribs and thwarts to keep it
in shape. A thick gum was put at the seams to prevent the water getting
through. Being so narrow it would have upset, but it had an outrigger,
which is a plank, or log, as long as the boat, pointed at the fore end.
This rested on the water five or six feet from the canoe, and was kept
there by poles, fastened across the canoe. This was always on the lee
side, as the canoes can sail both ways, stem or stern first. At one end
there was a deck, under which they kept their provisions, and on the top
of which the chief sat. The men to move it had short paddles, like
sharp-pointed shovels, and sitting with their faces to the bows, dug the
paddles into the water, which they sent flying behind them. We were
very sorry to part from many of our friends, but still the thoughts of
seeing a white man again,