ing, on an average, seven pounds each, or more; probably half a ton in the whole. They had been caught, in the course of the day, with a large new net, in the making of which almost everybody in the island, we were told, had had a hand. The man to whom it belonged, some days ago, sent two hogs round the country, announcing that he wanted a net of such dimensions immediately; and, since nearly all the people had tasted of the savoury meat, each was thereby bound to take a part in the manufacture of the article required. As this was the trial of the net the products were considered sacred, being first-fruits, and, according to ancient custom, were presented to the king. But, though Tamatoa received all this mass of fish, he took no more for the use of his own family than they could eat at a meal; and the rest, after selecting a few of the finest for the Missionaries, he ordered to be distributed among the people, by whom they were carried joyfully to their homes; and it might be said that a whole population supped on fish that evening.

But the ants are by no means the only destructive animals here-the hogs may dispute with them the prize of devastating voracity. They devour or destroy all before them. They rob the very ovens of the food preparing in them, not sparing the flesh of their own slaughtered companions which may be deposited there. These ovens, it will be recollected, are scooped in the ground and fired with wood, under the ashes of which, with the addition of heated stones, the provisions are laid, and covered up with earth, till the batches are sufficiently baked. The swine, whose wits, in this respect, are as sharp as their appetites, will carefully open such tumuli, grub out the hot stones, and, seizing the delicious morsels, run, with the spoil smoking between their teeth, to the next water, into which they plunge it to cool, and then greedily enjoy the repast. This morning it was discovered that seven or eight hogs, old offenders, had committed a burglary upon the large oven near Mr. Bourne's house, in which nearly forty bread-fruits, split and intended for breakfast, had been placed. The whole apparatus had been demolished, the earth, ashes, and stones were scattered abroad, and the precious contents consumed. Scarcely any fence will preserve plantations from their invading prowess, in mining, sapping, and storming, when they are sufficiently tempted to make the effort. They will walk round a large enclosure, trying every yard of paling or wattling, to discover a flaw through which to effect a breach. If the persuasion of insinuating snouts, or the violence of rampant feet, will not accomplish this, they will retreat ten or twelve yards backward, and rush head foremost against the obstruction, through which they seldom fail to make a neckor-nought entrance. When one of these ravenous animals is happy enough to find a bananatree with a bunch of ripe fruit suspended above his reach, but not above his ambition, he does not waste his strength, like Æsop's fox with the grapes, leaping at an unattainable object, but wisely and leisurely sets himself to gnaw through

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the trunk, and bring the treasure to the ground; and this he will never relinquish though he toil for hours, till his industry has been rewarded, and he literally eats the fruit of his labours.

Feb. 9. Having been detained here by contrary winds during the past week, after we had taken leave previously to embarking for Bora| bora, we had the privilege, this day, to witness the baptism of a hundred and ninety-eight candidates, of whom eighty-four were adults and a hundred and fourteen children. Of the latter, sixty-five were boys and forty-nine girls; and of these ten or twelve only appeared to be upwards of seven years old. It was an affecting consideration, as we looked upon the lovely and innocent countenances of these little ones, to reflect that a large majority of them owed their lives to the gospel. These ought indeed to be children of God; for previous to their birth, two-thirds of the infants that came into exist.. ence were put out of it as soon as they breathed the atmosphere of a region under the dominion of the prince of the power of the air, who wrought in the hearts of parents "without natural affection" to destroy their own flesh and blood. There have now been baptized, in Tahaa, four hundred and sixty-eight persons, old and young, all of whom are under Christian discipline and daily instruction. These consti

tute two-thirds of the population; the remainder, with a few idle or profligate exceptions, attend the schools and the public means of grace.

Feb. 10. A youth, not more than sixteen years of age, having been found guilty of attempting to persuade another boy, younger than himself, to be tatooed by him, was sentenced to be daubed from head to foot with black and white. He was then tied to a pole, and carried upon men's shoulders, before all the inhabitants of the district, to the pier, where, being laid down, the lad whom he had tried to seduce to a heathenish custom was directed to flog him smartly till he begged pardon and promised to leave off his wicked ways, for this was not the first offence of the kind of which he had been convicted. He was accompanied to and from the place of punishment by a crowd of young folks, who shouted and hooted at him.

Feb. 11. The following are the names of a few of the persons who were baptized on Sunday last, and we give them as specimens of the style and character of such appellatives:Maro, a girdle; Moiri, cloudy; Fara e, foreign pine-apple, (bromelia ananas,) which, in Tahiti, is an exotic; Tipape, a water-fetcher; Reiatura, neck of a god; Haamarurai, a cloudy sky; Teaparai, lost in the clouds; Ariiori, a dancing king; Viivi, polluted with mire; Vaiarii, water for the king; Faretaata, a house full of people; Otahia, a laughing-stock; Vahapata, a mouth that sputters out food as children; Pauma, a kite; Uvini, a parrot; Ohi, a bamboo; Raipoai, a hungry sky, &c. &c. It is often difficult to ascertain what meaning is associated with the words of which proper names are composed, the literal sense being almost none at all. Feb. 12. Four men and two women being

convicted of indecent practices, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood, and the confirmed disgrace of their own characters-similar crimes having been proved against all of them before, and the chastisements then inflicted having failed to reclaim or deter them-they were condemned to be fastened singly to a kind of pillory, and carried upon the shoulders of stout men all through the settlement, and back again to the pier, and there compelled to finish the work which was uncompleted under their former sentences; after which new tasks were assigned to each, which they would scarcely be able to perform in less than several months. All the stones which are employed in building the pier must be brought by the convicts out of the sea, from a considerable depth; and being of no small weight, the drudgery, one might suppose, in such a climate as this, would be intolerable; but, severe as it is, there are those who seem to disregard it, or rather love their crimes in spite of it; and here, as elsewhere, culprits who have oftenest suffered the penalties of the law are most hardened in their iniquity, and reckless of its wages-shame, toil, and servitude.

1823. FEB. 13. With a fine breeze we embarked this afternoon in Mr. Orsmond's boat, accompanied by Mai, one of the two kings of Borabora, who had kindly come over from thence expressly to convoy the Deputation, in honour of the Society whose servants we are for Christ's sake. That singular island, at the distance of fifteen miles, came full upon our view when we had passed the reef of Tahaa and entered the open sea. It consists of one pyramidical mountain, towering as it fronted us, very steeply to the height of four thousand feet, and crowned with an inaccessible crag of bare rock, which appeared to be a quadrangular mass laid on like a topstone. Below this, herbage and trees gradually thicken downwards to the shore. On the east and west the flanks slope more gradually, and the lower end presents a gently undulated surface till it dips into the sea. The light wind bore us slowly towards this noble object, which we contemplated with unsatisfied but imperceptibly changing delight, as its features increased in magnitude and distinctness, till, in the luxuriance of a fertile, fair, and peopled isle, we forgot the dim and visionary grandeur with which we had first beheld it, looming upon the horizon, and scarcely seeming to be "of the earth, earthy." Near though it seemed, at the end of four hours, and as if we might have swam to it, yet, before we could reach the port we aimed at, the sun went down, and the glori

sea.

ous scene became a black shadow, whose outline was barely distinguishable from the sky on which it was delineated, while it darkened our path upon the deep waters beneath as we warily steered round the western extremity that terminates in a reef far stretching into the This point must be doubled to enter the lagoon of the Missionary harbour, which is further defended by a barrier of coral rock, a small island called Tabua, and several motus, encircling the basin. The night was clear and calm, the firmament alive with stars, and the sea as quiet as a slumbering infant. Thus favourably circumstanced at midnight, a time most unseasonable for threading an intricate and perilous maze of rocks, and shoals, and fathomless gulfs, we were mercifully brought through the opening in the reef; and about two o'clock in the morning landed in Borabora.

Feb. 14. We shall forbear to expatiate on the local scenery, the patriarchal form of government, the church services, the improved style of building, and the progress of civilization, in the train of the gospel, among these people,-having recorded at sufficient length corresponding circumstances in our observations upon other islands. Borabora, in these respects, is behind none which we have visited in the windward group; or, to say the least, it might be exhibited as a favourable average specimen, on all the points above mentioned, of the whole.

Borabora is divided into seven districts, over which there are two kings, Mai and Tefaaoro. Mai is distinguished, like his royal brethren of Raiatea and Tahaa, for his fervent piety, his peaceful spirit, and the wise administration of his government. When Mr. Orsmond came hither, in 1820, this prince, who owned the district in which the settlement stands, gave him possession of a considerable portion of land adjacent, for the maintenance of the Mission.

Feb. 16 (Lord's day). At the early prayermeeting nearly the whole congregation, amount. ing to a thousand persons, were present. Two natives, including Mai the king, engaged in the public services, by offering such prayers as one would wish might ascend every Sabbath-day from the lips of all Gentiles under heaven, for such could not fail to bring down upon the earth blessings that would soon remove the direst effects of the transgression for which the ground was cursed after the fall of man. Mr. Orsmond preached twice, in the fore and afternoon. The people were exceedingly quiet, and seemed to hear with devout attention, and to join heartily, with sweet voices and delighted countenances, in singing the praises of God. The aspect of the assembly was more native than the motley garments, of divers colours and patterns, to which we had been familiarized in some other places; most of the people being clad in the simple, but beautifully becoming, array of their ancestors, and that in full costume, not scanty and immodest as it was generally worn in their pagan state. This consisted of ample folds of their own manufactured cloth, as white as snow, girt about their loins, with the graceful tibuta of the same thrown over their shoulders, and

fastened upon the breast. The men wore hats, and the women bonnets, made of the purau-bark, delicately wrought into the only exotic article of dress which they have yet adopted; coverings for the head (though these might be supposed indispensable comforts in a tropical climate) having been little used in former days, except by warriors, and on festival occasions by dancers and officers of ceremony. Not a dirty disorderly individual of either sex was to be seen throughout the whole congregation; and the behaviour, as well as the looks, of the children in the house of God, to us appeared most ingenuous and engaging natural and simple, though under restraint. Had the Redeemer been visibly present, He surely would not have disdained to say, even here, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." Feb. 17. This morning was appointed to welcome us to Borabora. Kings, chiefs, raatiras, and common people, assembled in the chapel. After the devotions were concluded, and several congratulatory addresses had been delivered on both sides, two of the principal men stepped forward, and presented each of us with a beautiful mat, prepared of the finest materials, and in the most ingenious style of native manufacture, as a token of esteem and respect of all the people of the island. A third chief then delivered to our care another article of the same kind, into the texture of which the name Griffin had been wrought. This we were requested to convey also in the name of all the people, as their pledge of gratitude to the Rev. Mr. Griffin, in England, from whose congregation their missionary, Mr. Orsmond, had come out. the evening all the children, three hundred in number, with their teachers, the king (Mai) leading up the boys, and his queen the girls, were assembled in the school-room to say iaorana to us. When we entered, the little ones all stood up and sung a hymn, specially composed for the occasion by Mr. Orsmond. They afterwards passed in classes before us, when we took a hand of each in turn and gave them our blessing, praying that greater blessings than we could give might ever be upon their heads.

In

Feb. 18. A wedding was solemnized here this afternoon. The parties had met, been mutually pleased, and agreed to live with one another, after a few hours of well-spent acquaintance. This is not unfrequent here, though long courtships are; and so we may add are matrimonial delinquencies, such as formerly abounded, and involved the whole community in the most revolting state of profligacy. Marriage compacts are easily arranged, and the overture may be made by either party, the woman as well as the man, and, according to ancient usage, as often by the former as the latter. A message of affection, with the request of a return in kind, is sent by a friend, or a note is written on a plantain-leaf with the point of a stick. The answer is generally as prompt as the proposal is direct-either aita, no, or ua tia, it is agreed; but in most instances, since the knowledge of the gospel has led to more refinement in conduct, those who are united in that

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relation have obtained sufficient previous knowledge of each other's characters, as well as a satisfactory understanding of each other's minds.

Feb. 19. Tero, king of Maupiti, having come over to Borabora to invite and convey us to his island, we sailed with him thither. The wind being very moderate, our crew were obliged to labour hard at the oar to make progress all day; and even at midnight we were several miles from our desired haven. This is a very small island, lying due west from the Missionary station at Borabora. The opening in the reef is on the south-west side, very narrow and deem ed difficult of access. Indeed, we found it so for, though there had been little wind to stir the sea, there was a great swell towards the entrance, and a strong current setting from it at the same time. The moon had gone down several hours before we reached this dangerous strait, which darkness rendered doubly fearful. The king himself, therefore, as being best acquainted with the navigation, took the helm, and steered our boat with great composure and such good judgment that we shipped no sea, though a heavy one broke upon our stern and made our little vessel reel again. In the course of half an hour, through a merciful Providence, we had safely made the transit from a swollen ocean, through conflicting breakers, into the calm lagoon. Day dawned, and the sun rose upon its one high-peaked mountain, as we entered the harbour and landed on this pretty spot, which is so small, and yet so adorned, that it seems rather a resting-place for those who traverse the vast Pacific, from continent to continent of the extremities of the old and new world, than the fixed and hereditary seat of a distinct population. In truth, there are hundreds of islets scattered over this immensity of water of which the same may be said; and yet, upon their handbreadth of soil, after the fathers, have come up the children, through untold generations, leaving, as they disappeared, no more trace of their fugitive existence than the breakers that were contemporary with them have left of their foam upon the reefs.

Feb. 20. The whole population was waiting to receive us at the pier, and all voices were raised to say iaorana; all countenances were smiling upon us, as though we had been angels just lighted from heaven upon their soil; while all hands were stretched out to welcome us, as men of like passions with themselves, drawn by affection from the ends of the earth to visit them in their lowliness—and in their loneliness too; for what a speck upon the ocean-what an atom among the nations - is poor Maupiti! And yet to the father, whose father's bones lie there to the mother, whose mother nursed her on that very spot-and to the babe that dances in her arms, as full of life and spirits as though it were all over wings, and could fly like a lark into the firmament, if restraining love would let it to those parents, and to that babe, Maupiti is home and country; all that all the world can be to them,

"Whose souls proud science never taught to stray Beyond the solar walk or milky way."

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How false, yet how touching, are the lines that follow these! One almost wishes that they had been true, the picture is so captivating:"Yet, simple Nature to his hopes has given, Behind the cloud topt hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste.

To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."

ESSAY ON MAN.-EPIST. I. Alas! such a race of "Indians" never existed anywhere on the face of this fallen world, in a state of nature-or rather, in that state of heathenism in which the best feelings of nature are incessantly and universally outraged. What notions the simple people of these islands had of "heaven" has already been shown in the course of this journal on various occasions, so far as we durst draw the veil from abominations, not lawful to be uttered, which were associated with their notions of the spiritual condition of the dead.

Feb. 21. There was a general assembly of the inhabitants to aroha us, as the representatives of the good people of Beretani who had sent them the great word,-the word of God, which had sounded forth from our shores even to theirs. Mutual congratulations were exchanged, and there was that feeling abroad among all classes which had an enemy of the gospel witnessed, however hardened in unbelief, he must have caught the infection for a moment, and exclaimed, "See, how these Christians love one another!"

Maupiti received the "good tidings of great joy, which are to all people," in 1817. We say, had received the "good tidings," not from strangers, but from two native teachers, whose lips the Lord had opened, that their mouths might shew forth his praise, and who, in their own tongue, could tell the idolaters of this island what God had done for Borabora, whence they themselves came. Their testimony was believed; the maraes, with their altars and their divinities, were overthrown, and small and great acknowledged "the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent." For four years, these "two witnesses" continued to 'prophesy" to their brethren, and it was not till December last that a European preacher shewed his face among them. Mr. Orsmond, from Borabora, at that time visited the new converts at Maupiti, as Barnabas the first Christians at Antioch; when he likewise experienced the gladness of that "good man, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," expressed in the text from which he has preached this day, when "he saw the grace of God." We are mistaken, if this lovely spot, alone as it lies at a considerable distance from the rest of the Society group, was not the first amidst these seas that was evangelized by the labours of native teachers,

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It is a very remarkable example of the influence of Christianity on the single-hearted, generous-minded people of these petty but not insignificant realms, where ambition, not less

than cruelty and licentiousness, formerly bore sway, and the right of power alone gave a title to rule, that, when Borabora had exchanged the bondage of Satan for the yoke of Him who was meek and lowly of heart, her inhabitants not only sent messengers to Maupiti to proclaim spiritual liberty to the captives there, but Mai, one of her kings, who had held that island by conquest, spontaneously restored it to Tero, its rightful sovereign, who now reigns here in righteousness, as his ancestors reigned before him by violence. The warriors of Maupiti were not a whit behind the most ferocious of their neighbours, in the malignancy and inveteracy of their enmities, and the reckless havoc of life which they made in their wars. When a combatant had slain a distinguished adversary, after the fray was over, the perishing carcass was left upon the field for a day or two. It was then dragged to the marae, when the victor and his friends would stand over it, and exult in the most savage manner over the corrupted mass. Each taking a fibrous wand of cocoa-nut leaf, tough as whalebone, in his hand, to employ as a drum-stick, they would beat the body with these till they were weary ; saying to it, "Aha! we have you now; your tongue fills your mouth, your eyes stand out of your head, and your face is swollen; so it would have been with us if you had prevailed." Then, after a pause, they would renew their impotent stripes, and not less impotent taunts:

"Now you are dead; you will no more plague us; we are revenged upon you; and so you would have revenged yourself on us, if you had been the strongest in battle."-Again; "Ah! you will drink no more ava; you will kill no more men; you will disembowel no more of our wives and daughters; as we use you, you would have used us; but we are the conquerors, and we have our vengeance." When they had tired themselves, and beaten the flesh of the corpse to mummy, they broke the arms above the elbows, placed flowers within the hands, and, fastening a rope about the neck, they suspended the mangled remains upon a tree, and danced with fiend-like exultation about it, laughing and shouting as the wind blew the dislocated limbs, and the rent muscles, to and fro.

Next to murder in all its forms of battle, sacrifice, assassination, and infanticide, robbery was practised to perfection among these islanders-Hiro, the god of thieves, being served with scarcely less devotion than Oro, the god of war. The devotees of the former, of course, excelled in subtlety, as those of the latter in courage. When they had marked a well-stored house for purposes of plunder, one of the party would steal into it, during the night, and secure a leg of the master, and of every inmate likely to be formidable, while they were asleep,* by noosing the limb with a rope, which he fastened to one of the posts that supported the building. His comrades, in the meantime, climbed upon

These people sleep very soundly, of which fact we have heard some remarkable proofs.

the roof, and, opening holes through the thatch, drew up, at their leisure, all such valuable property as was wont to be hung upon frames or against the walls. While they were fishing in this manner, and, by means of strings and hooks, catching one precious article after another, if the owner or any of his household awoke, and in alarm leaped forth to sally out upon the burglars, the rope round his leg checked and threw him upon the floor, and the enemy precipitately decamped. To secure their hogs, the natives sometimes chose to sleep upon a board laid over the sty where the animals were lodged. A rogue would watch his opportunity to run against this precarious bedstead, and roll the astonished occupant in the dust, who, being thus suddenly awakened, naturally ran after the assailant, who cunningly acted as a decoy, and drew him away from the premises, while his comrades roused the reluctant hogs, turned them out of their quiet enclosure, and drove or carried them off, squalling, upon their shoulders.

Feb. 25. In the school we counted eighty boys and sixty girls: the disproportion between the sexes among the adults is at the rate of three men for two women. This inequality, so far as regards the rising generation, (emphatically rising, in this respect,) is gradually diminishing, since the abolition of infanticide, of which formerly females, at their birth, were the principal victims. There are now about two hundred children in the island, under ten years of age; while there are comparatively few between that age and twenty. The gap is fearful in that interesting stage of human existence, having been made by those whose progeny would have filled it with youth and strength, intelligence and loveliness, had not the parents themselves killed all these in the bud, and left the fairest branch of the tree of life almost flowerless and fruitless.

It is remarkable that, though so many infants were destroyed immediately after their birth, those which were preserved were nursed with the most passionate tenderness and jealousy of affection. Not only would an injury-a blow, for example, casually or intentionally-inflicted by a man upon a child, be revenged sevenfold by its father-but if a boy or girl, in a quarrel, hurt one of another family, the parent of the sufferer would take his club and go to the house of the offender's parents and demand satisfaction. This was either given, to a sufficient amount to appease the challenger, or the other parent seized his club also, when to battle they went, and seldom desisted till one of the combatants was slain.

March 2. (Lord's-day.) Ninety adults and children have been baptized yesterday and this morning. There are not now more than sixty unbaptized persons, of age to judge for themselves, in this island. A church, upon the independent plan, was also established here, of which the first members were the two teachers from Borabora, Tero, the king, and five others. On this occasion the holy communion of the body and blood of Christ was celebrated for the

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first time in Maupiti; thus may its inhabitants "shew forth the Lord's death, until He come!" What hath God wrought here, where Satan formerly wrought his direst purposes! In every part of this beautiful island there are traces of a population, once numerous and flourishing, among the valleys and on the wooded sides of the mountains, till reduced by war and infanticide to a few families scattered along the shore. But the gospel found the population thus perishing, and said to the small remnant, "live," when, forthwith, it revived. It is now increasing on every side, and rebuilding the waste places of former generations. The multitude of maraes, not less than two hundred and twenty, within a circumference of ten miles, must, latterly, have equalled the number of dwellings. These were of many sizes, but, in general, small, and built in the rudest manner-mere squares of ill-shapen and ill-piled stones, now more picturesque in decay than ever they had been in their glory when they were deemed to be temples of divinities. These were erected in any place and at any time, when the priests required, by the slavish people. On such occasions the former overlooked the latter at their work, and denounced the most terrible judgments upon those who were remiss at it. The poor wretches were thus compelled to finish their tasks (burthensome as they often were, in heaving blocks from the sea, dragging them ashore, and heaping them one upon another) without eating, which would have desecrated the intended sanctuary. To restrain the gnawings of hunger they bound girdles of bark round their bodies, tightening the ligatures, from time to time, as their stomachs shrunk with emptiness. And, when the drudgery was done, it was not uncommon for the remorseless priests to seize one of the miserable builders and sacrifice him to the idol of the place. After battles the dead bodies of enemies were laid upon these maraes; but the lower jaw-bone of each was sent to Raiatea, as the representative of the whole carcass, which was supposed thus to be offered to Oro, at his headquarters, at Opoa. Long strings of these relics might be seen there, suspended about his

marae.

March 5. A Missionary Society was formed at a meeting held for that purpose: freely having received the gospel, the people were prepared freely to communicate it to tribes who had it not. A thousand bamboos of oil were subscribed, and men, women, and children all expressed themselves eager to contribute what they could, however great or however small their offering might be.

March 6. We returned to Borabora.

March 10. The people here having learnt that we had two copies of the Acts of the Apostles, newly translated into their tongue, we were applied to by many for the loan of the same, in the evening, that they might take the books home to read in their families. So far as was possible we were glad to accommodate these eager inquirers after the word of God, which, from the necessity of the case-a neces