IN FIJI DF 
“Early in the morning the two missionaries went ashore 
in a boat, the schooner in the meantime lying off without 
coming to anchor. Deafening shouts along the shore an- 
nounced the approach of the vessel, and drew together a 
great crowd of Tongans and Fijians, armed and blackened 
according to their custom, to receive the strangers. 
“At the very outset the missionaries had a great advantage 
in being able at once to converse with the people without an 
interpreter; for many of the Fijians at Lakemba, through 
very long intercourse with the Tongans, could speak their 
language. . . . Thus the visitors passed through crowds of 
Tongans, hailing them with the friendly greetings of their 
own land.... 
“They came at once to the king’s town. .. . In one of his 
large houses they were introduced to the king and some of 
his chiefs. Tui Nayau readily promised them land for the 
mission premises, and desired that their families and goods 
should be landed forthwith, while he undertook to build 
temporary dwellings as soon as possible.” 
Soon after the missionaries returned to the schooner, it 
“cast anchor, and the families, who had suffered very seri- 
ously from seasickness, were only too eager to get ashore. 
A large canoe house on the beach, open at the sides and end, 
was given them as their dwelling until proper houses could 
be built. Under this great shed the two families passed 
the night, but not in sleep. The curtains had been left 
on board with their other goods, and they speak of the 
mosquitoes that night as being ‘innumerable and unusually 
Hane ici. 
“Here then, beneath a canoe shed, the missionary band 
spent their first night in Fiji, the wives and children worn 
out with their voyage, stung by numberless mosquitoes, and 
the crying of the little ones answered by the grunts of pigs 
running about in all directions. Glad enough were they, the 
next morning, to accept the captain’s invitation, and go back 
to the vessel until their houses were ready.” 
