48 ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH SEAS 
industrious and enterprising. ... They have excelled their 
neighbors in commerce, engaging and supporting canoe car- 
penters, and thus enlarging their means of communication 
with other parts of the group. . . . Somehow they boldly 
kept their canoes from the grasp of superior chiefs, and thus 
their intercourse with other islands has been considerable. 
On becoming Christians, they spread diligently the knowl- 
edge of the gospel wherever they voyaged, so that in many 
places they were made useful.” 
Seventy miles north by west from Lakemba, there is a 
large and populous island called Vanua Mbalavu, which 
means The Long Land. The people of this island and those 
of Oneata were related, and worshiped the same gods. 
Men of Oneata frequently visited this larger island. Danc- 
ing and singing and general carousal usually accompanied 
these visits, but when the Oneatans became Christians, and 
with zeal for God burning in their souls visited the Vanua 
Mbalavuans, earnest talking about their new religion took 
the place of the old custom of heathen dancing. This, how- 
ever, gave great offense to the people of Vanua Mbalavu, 
who regarded it as a regrettable departure from their com- 
mon gods. 
“Nevertheless good was done, and the first man who 
yielded to the exhortations of good Josiah and his people, 
was a chief of high rank and renown belonging to the town 
of Lomaloma. Believing in the falsehood of heathenism, 
and in the truth and value of the Christian religion, he 
boldly avowed his attachment to Christianity, and began 
to worship the Lord. 
“As a heathen he was feared and influential; but the mild 
rule of love is not regarded by dark-minded heathens. The 
chiefs opposed; and the priests, to please the chiefs and to 
vindicate their own false system, under professed inspira- 
tion, predicted a drouth, and that the earth would be so 
scorched as not to produce food, because of this innovation. 
