1835. DEPAUTURK REMARKS. fill 



my proper business to interfere, thovigh unavoidably I had 

 become involved in tliem. By evening we had gained a good 

 offing, and profited by it in the night, during a strong gale of 

 wind from the eastward, with a lee current, setting to the north- 

 west, about a knot an hour. When we sailed there was every 

 appearance of a gale coming on, but all our necessary opera- 

 tions were completed, and to have stayed an hour longer in 

 that place would have been far worse than passing some hours 

 in a gale of wind at sea. 



That the few notices here given of a small part of New 

 Zealand are scanty and quite insufficient for those who seek 

 general information, I am well aware : but the Beagle's stay 

 was very short, and I have made it a principle in this narra- 

 tive to restrict myself to writing what I or my companions 

 collected on the spot : admitting a few quotations from other 

 authorities, only where they seemed to illustrate or explain a 

 particular subject, without requiring much space. To those 

 interested about this important and rising country, I need 

 hardly mention the volume of evidence taken before the House 

 of Lords, as the latest, — and Cook's account as the earliest, 

 — as well as best sources of information. 



I will now endeavour to draw attention to a few of the diffi- 

 culties against which missionaries have to contend, while anx- 

 iously labouring in their holy cause among Polynesian, Aus- 

 tralian, and European infidels. It may be supposed that po- 

 pulation and occasional intercourse had every where extended, 

 even before the ever-memorable epoch, when the ' Victory ' was 

 steered by the daring Magalhaens across an vinexplored ocean : 

 but since that time, intercourse with Polynesia has so much 

 increased, that the most interesting islanders — those of Ota- 

 heite and the Sandwich Islands— are already more civilized 

 than the natives of some of the Spanish settlements in America. 



The New Zealanders are improving ; so likewise are the 

 natives of many other islands, which have been visited by mis- 

 sionaries : but those islanders who have been altered only by 

 the visits of whalers, sealers, and purveyors for Chinese epi- 

 cures, have in no way profited. On the contrary, they have 



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