rushed away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his life,
convinced that he had heard the captain's demon.

The chief of Raiatea was named Tamatoa, and was a man of considerable
power. Two years previously the Tahitian king, Pomare, nineteen of his
subjects, and a missionary named Wilson had been driven thither in a
canoe by stress of weather; and what Tamatoa had heard from them had so
impressed him that he had persuaded his people to build a place of
worship, observe the Sunday, and meet to repeat together the scant
lessons they had been able to receive during the visit of the Tahitians.
This led to a resolve to entreat for the presence of a missionary among
them; and the chieftain himself came to Huahime to make the request.
Williams longed to go, but, as the youngest minister, waited till all the
rest had decided to the contrary, and then gladly accepted his lot to go
with Tamatoa. There was a joyous welcome, and a feast was brought,
consisting of five pigs for Mr. Williams, five for his wife, and five for
their baby-boy; besides crates of yams, bananas, and cocoa-nuts, which,
however, they were not required to eat themselves, only to see eaten in
their house.

The islanders were ready to give up their idols and call themselves
Christians, to hear Mr. Williams preach, and to observe the Sabbath;
being, in fact, like the Red Indians of Eliot's experience, so idle that
a day of no work made no difference to them. Their indolence, the effect
of their enervating climate, was well-nigh invincible; they preferred
hunger to trouble, and withal their customs were abhorrent to Christian
morality. Most islets of the South Seas have much the same experience.
The people, taken on their best side, show themselves gentle and
intelligent, and their chiefs are dignified gentlemen; but there is a
horrible background of ferocity and barbarism--often cannibalism. It
generally proves comparatively easy to obtain a recognition of
Christianity, and the cruelty and violence are usually laid aside; but to
bring purity and morality to bear upon these races is a much more
difficult thing, and the apparent failures have been at once the grief
and reproach of missionaries, while those who assail them with scoffs
forget the difficulty of dealing with the inveterate customs of a whole
people, in a luxurious climate, and with little or no inducement to such
industrial occupations or refinements of mind, as are the best
aux