Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
3 26 
fury of the mountain blast has turned the 
sleeping waters of the harbour into a seething 
mass of angry foam; in ten all is quiet again, 
and the vessel rides on a lake of glass. 
The arrival of a vessel flying the English flag 
is quite an event to the people of Rapa 
nowadays. They remember the glories of the 
past days, when the 2,ooo-ton mail boats came 
there and the passengers spent their money on 
fruit and curios right royally. And even if the 
French Governor were standing by they would 
not hesitate to show their delight at meeting 
English people again, for they love the taata 
Peretane (men of Britain), and lament that 
another flag than hers is floating over the 
Residency. And indeed this is pretty well so 
throughout the Society, Austral, and Paumotu 
Islands. “ Ah, we would like to be English. 
Our first missionaries were English ; our first 
friends were English ; now we are split and 
divided, and belong to France.” 
Long after Vancouver’s time Rapa was visited 
by the good and discerning Ellis, whose name 
will always be associated with earlier missionary 
enterprise in the South Pacific. The ship in 
which he was cruising made the island at dawn, 
