96 ADVENTURES IN THE SOUTH SEAS 
The lives of these teachers were continually in danger. 
The savages regarding them as enemies because of their re- 
ligion, every pretext was sought to attach to them responsi- 
bility for deeds worthy of death. The house of one of them 
was burned over his head because sickness had visited the 
island, and his friend from Aneityum, who was living with 
him, was believed to be the cause of it. Fortunately they 
both escaped with their lives. 
A chief had sailed away in his canoe to visit Aneityum. 
He was expected back in a short time, but weeks went by 
and he failed to return. At once the savage warriors, deem- 
ing him lost, laid the responsibility for his death upon Waihit, 
and went about to kill him, accusing him of having raised 
a great storm to drown their chief. Waihit, realizing that 
there was “but a step between him and death,’ was about 
to embark in a canoe for Aneityum when the mission ship 
hove in sight, and the missing chief was found to be upon 
her deck alive and well. : 
Years afterward, when Dr. Inglis visited the island, as 
his boat neared the beach, he found the bush literally swarm- 
ing with armed savages. They were still as they had been 
when they murdered the Samoan teachers. They still were 
the same savage, thieving, cannibal fellows they had been 
before the gospel came to their island. And thus they were 
when Mr. Copeland landed on Fotuna to be their missionary. 
They began by stealing his goods, and often his life was in 
peril. 
“We have had a good deal of intercourse with the natives, 
more especially at first,” wrote Mr. Copeland some time after 
his landing. “Many came to see us and our house with its 
contents, while others came to dispose of food. ... We have 
found them to be greedy, selfish, hard to please, and unrea- 
sonable. ... For manual labor we have to pay them well... . 
Generally we have been treated civilly. A few have been 
troublesome, and disposed to annoy us. At times we have 
felt pleased with their general conduct; at other times we 
