NIUE, OB SAVAGE ISLAND. 31 



giving up the contents of liis chest, he was safely housed 

 and left unmolested ; a result by no means discreditable to 

 the ' ungovernable barbarians.' In 1849 Mr. Murray him- 

 self/ to whom we are indebted for these details, visited the 

 island, and reported all things quiet, and, so far as missionary 

 prospects were concerned, in a hopeful state ; nevertheless, 

 writing in ] 862, and referring to this visit, he says of the 

 islanders that they were then (1849) ' the wildest heathens 

 he had ever seen.' Luckily we have some other evidence, not 

 missionary, which enables us to test the value of this judg- 

 ment. In the same year (1849) a most competent observer, 

 Captain Erskine, in H.M.S. ' Havannah,' lay off' the island for 

 a day, during which the ship was surrounded by and thronged 

 Avith natives, and this was the conclusion he came to : ' Alto- 

 gether tliey impressed me very favourably with their dis- 

 position, uor did they seem wanting in natural capacity.' ^ 

 No trace here of the ' wild ungovernable barbarism ' from 

 whicla there had been lately so ' merciful a deliverance,' nor 

 of the exceptionally wild heathenism that had been so mani- 

 fest to the missionary. 



Our next witnesses are again two niissionaries, Messrs. 

 Murray and Sunderland, in 1852. They inform us, that 

 Paulo, a native teacher, having converted two or three hun- 

 dred of the islanders, being over 4,000 in number, the con- 



' ' Missions in Western Polynesia,' &c. p. 363. 



2 'Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, &c., 

 in H.M.S. " Havannah," ' by John Elphinstone Erskine, Captain, R.N. 

 He adds that, 'with few exceptions, the expression of their countenances 

 was intelligent and prepossessing.' 



