8 A MISSION TO VITI. 
on the 20th of April, and had thus been twenty-three 
days on the passage, four of which we had strong gales 
and were compelled to heave to. We bantered the 
Captain a good deal about the long passage, and as- 
cribed it all to his having left on a Friday, at the same 
time accumulating instances where departures on that 
unlucky day had been followed by as disastrous conse- 
quences as when thirteen sit down to table. But he 
thought it high time that such vestiges of superstition 
should be rooted up, and said there was no more in 
them than in the Flying Dutchman. On the following 
day we were off Lakeba (Lakemba). It being Sunday, 
Captain Birkenshaw would not give offence by sending 
a boat on shore on the Sabbath. I suggested that we 
might all go to church as soon as landed, but he main- 
tained that it was as much as his place was worth to 
entertain such an idea; so we had the mortification 
of stopping another day on board, and sail backwards 
and forwards between the islands of Lakeba and Olorua. 
I enjoyed much the fine sight that thus was offered. 
The sky was clear and bright, and a number of little 
islands and islets were rising from the blue sea, the 
waves breaking on thejr rocky shores, or forming curly 
crests on the long reefs that encircle many of them. 
They were all more or less elevated, and covered with 
vegetation, here with patches of grass or brake and 
other hard-leaved ferns, there with brushwood or larger 
trees; the presence of countless screw-pines and irop- 
wood (Casuarina) trees imparting to them their peculiar 
Polynesian character. Well may it be said, that the 
graceful waving iron-wood bears on its very face the 
