THE MARTYRS OF TONGA 21 
the murdered missionaries had buried on the first breaking 
out of the war. They gladly complied with his proposal, in 
the expectation that they would be able to render the last 
sad offices of friendship to their beloved companions. 
“On the 8th of June they set out, accompanied by about - 
a dozen men; and on their arrival, they found the mission 
premises a perfect desolation; the fences broken down, the 
houses in ruins, and the produce of the gardens entirely de- 
stroyed. The bodies of their murdered companions were 
found lying unburied at a short distance from the premises. 
That of Burnham, the sailor, was found in a ditch not far 
off, and as it could not be removed, they covered it with earth 
where it lay. Assisted by the natives, they dug one large 
grave, into which they removed the bodies of their departed 
brethren. “They had lain,’ Mr. Ellis remarks, ‘for nearly a 
month exposed to the elements of heaven and the insults 
of relentless savages, and were now interred without a rem- 
nant of cloth to surround them or a few boards to inclose 
them. Happily for the departed, it made no difference; their 
dust was as precious in the eyes of Him who will watch over 
it till the morning of the resurrection, as if deposited in its 
last resting place with the most costly rites of sepulture.’ 
“The name of one man among the natives, Vaaji, the chief 
of Ardeo, deserves honorable mention. He appears to have 
been a sincere friend to the missionaries. He bewailed their 
death in the most affecting manner, and when the troubles 
occasioned by the war had subsided, he had their bodies 
removed to a more suitable place of interment, and erected 
over them a tomb to mark the spot where they lay. 
““This delicate and generous token of respect’ to the 
murdered missionaries was deeply affecting to the survivors. 
It was a beautiful and touching deed, all the more so as it 
stands almost alone. A gleam of light amid the dense 
darkness of those troubled and calamitous years, it seemed 
to herald the brighter era which in due time was to open 
upon Tonga. 
