202 Letter XV. 
to £38, at which price she was knocked down to Mr. Under- 
wood, of Inyug, 
We now began to realise our position. We were a ship- 
wrecked party—not, it is true, upon a heathen island, and for 
that we were thankful ; but upon an out-of-the-way place, where 
we might be cooped up for months, on short rations perhaps. 
The beautiful scenery now had not much attraction for me,and 
time hung rather heavily on our hands. 
The cabin table, and dishes, and the galley-stove, had been 
removed into a building at the back of the mission station ; 
and this we used as a dining-hall, other buildings being kindly 
put at our disposal, by Mr. Murray, for sleeping apart- 
ments. 
In order to get up a little excitement to vary the monotony 
of our existence, I arranged a day of sports, which on the 
whole came off very successfully. We had all the ship’s bunt- 
ing hung out from two cocoanut-palms, and we had a fine wide 
grassy road as the course. There were running flat races, 
walking races, sack races, and jumps, in which both whites 
and blacks competed. The blacks were nowhere. The 
great feature of the day, however, was a pulling match across 
the harbour, distance about one mile, between a white and 
black crew. Mr. Underwood acted as coxswain to the black- 
fellows, while I coached the whites. In this race we got 
unmercifully licked. For some time the boats kept very even, 
but the blacks rowed with a quicker stroke, kept it up all the 
way, and came in about twenty yards ahead of us. They were, 
however, a crack whaling crew, whereas my men’ were not 
much used to pulling steadily. The day’s entertainment con- 
cluded with a grand display of fireworks, which included 
rockets, blue lights, &c., and rather astonished the natives. 
Another evening we had a select drawingroom entertainment 
in the schoolroom, consisting of a highly moral magic lantern, 
