A III STORY OF TATTJTI 



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mission was designed to be one of mercy came to sorrowing Tahiti. She 

 was the Dujf, under Captain James Wilson, and she brought eighteen 

 English missionaries whom the London Missionary Society had sent 

 into the Pacific with the avowed purpose of converting the natives to 

 Christianity. It is true that in 1772 two vessels from Peru had visited 

 Tahiti and in 1774 Spanish priests were landed, but in the course of a 

 year they had left without making converts. 



Pomare and Idia his consort received the strangers kindly and pre- 

 sented them with a large house which had been built for Captain Bligh 

 by the side of the Vaipopoo river near Point Venus. These missionaries 

 were chiefly mechanics, artisans and small tradesmen of nonconformist 

 turn of mind, and the natives were quick to appreciate the advantage 



Valley of Tae-o-hae Nukahwa Island, Marquesas. 



which might accrue to them through the maintenance of a forge and a 

 well-equipped carpenter shop; but official enthusiasm cooled when the 

 visitors refused to fashion weapons of war. Still they were more than 

 tolerated for their gifts of axes, knives and cloth, although the chiefs 

 politely requested them to refrain from "parau" (exhortation). 



The time was not propitious for the immediate acceptance of Chris- 

 tianity. Diseases of European origin were ravaging the land, affecting 

 almost every family, and the natives were convinced that the white man's 

 god had brought the evils which Avere destroying them ; so when the 

 missionaries prayed, the natives dragged the diseased and the deformed 

 out upon the village green, and exposing them to view, cried, " See what 

 your god has wrought ! " 



During these early years when many a grave error might have been 

 avoided, the missionaries appear to have lacked a leader whose heart was 



