102 A MISSION TO VITI. 



agreeable companions in the chief and his people. In 

 return for the dignities heaped upon him, Harry was to 

 repair the muskets of the tribe, and to tell the chief 

 stories about the white men and their country. Having 

 for about a week been an errand-boy to a London 

 apothecary, he was able to dispense pills to the sick, 

 and thus to assume another important stand in his new 

 life. Years had rolled on without his seeing any 

 white faces, when one day native messengers arrived 

 from the coast, stating that they had been sent by a 

 foreigner, who wished to have an interview with him, 

 and whom they described as wearing a blue coat all 

 covered with looking-glasses. Harry had seen many 

 extraordinary sights, but a man thus attired excited his 

 curiosity, and he acceded to the request. To his sur- 

 prise, he found the late Mr. Williams, United States 

 Consul, whose brass buttons had been mistaken for 

 looking-glasses. Mr. Williams had heard of the exist- 

 ence of some copper mines in the interior, and was de- 

 sirous of purchasing them. Through Harry's interven- 

 tion, that object was accomplished, and the mines passed 

 into Mr. Williams's possession, but they have not as yet 

 been worked, nor indeed been examined by any scien- 

 tific man. Dr. Macdonald and Mr. S. Waterhouse paid a 

 visit to Namosi when they ascended the Eewa river; and 

 Harry, who had long ere that sown all his wild oats, 

 and found one wife quite as much as a sensible man 

 could manage, begged the Rev. Samuel Waterhouse to 

 christen his natural children. But he met with a re- 

 fusal, on the ground of his not being married. " Then 

 pray marry me," was the next demand. "Impossible," 



