His CAPTORS. 43 



Progress in the Arts. Tahitian Teachers. 



selves, and without distinctions. They are four 

 hundred all told, and live, according to their own 

 telling, in much peace, being visited two or three 

 times a year by whale ships for recruits, whose 

 trade just keeps them (the adults) with a single 

 cloth garment, or kihei a piece. 



A roughly-made schooner, of kamanu wood 

 (much like our mahogany), was on the stocks, 

 for which they were very anxious to get tar, 

 oakum, and a compass. No white missionary, 

 we were told, has ever resided upon the island, 

 but all their imperfect Christianization and ac- 

 quaintance with the arts have been effected by 

 native teachers from Tahiti. White men have 

 stopped on the island occasionally, but they say 

 they do not want them, unless they know the 

 language and have some trade. 



I could not leave this secluded and lovely isl- 

 and, though but the stopping-place of a day, and 

 ere long, I hope, to mingle with humanity in a 

 wider and more populous field, without a feel- 

 ing of sadness, I hardly know why. But so it 

 is in the voyage of life, especially in that of a 

 traveler, sailing down the stream of time, we 

 hail a friendly bark, or touch here and there at 

 a pleasant landing-place upon its banks, pluck 



