VATE. 227 



Such is the account I received on the spot, which liowever, 

 there is great reason, as is usual in these dark portraits of 

 uncivilised people, to believe is greatly exaggerated. 



In the 'Samoan Eeporter' for September 1845, the Eev. 

 Mr. Turner, of the London Mission, says of the people of 

 Vate, ' They are upon the whole the most inviting heathens 

 we have seen, though polygamy abounded, and the burden 

 of manual labour devolving on the woman, she never 

 rears more than two or three children, burying them alive 

 as soon as they are born.' He also describes the Avars be- 

 tween the tribes as anything but sanguinary. But, in the 

 year 1849, Mr. Hardie, who was there in order to remove 

 tlie teachers, gave on their authority an unfavourable 

 account of tliem, and described them as cruel and gluttonous 

 cannibals. Erskine,-' however, who notices these somewhat 

 opposite statements, expresses his regret at not being able 

 to make a longer stay among them, as the little oppor- 

 tunity he had of judging impressed him in their favour. 

 It may be observed in support of this view, that the 

 missionary Murray^ gives us an extract from a rejDort by 

 himself and Hardie, purporting to be a story told by the 

 teachers (natives of other islands) of their miraculous 

 deliverance on a certain evening, which is by no means of a 

 nature to make us place any reliance on the statements on 

 which Mr. Hardie founds his opinion. 



It is an account of a visit paid them by a number of 



' Erskine, p. SS^. 



^ ' Mission in Western Polynesia,' p. 244. 



* Q 2 



