PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
135 
We would not kill him, as did tl^e tribe of which the missionary 
informed me; we would thank him for his good intentions and 
give him, as We gave the missionary, shelter and tood while he 
remained among us. Our gods supply us with bread-fruit and 
cocoa-nuts, bananas and tarra in abundance; we are perfectly con¬ 
tented and we feel satisfied, there is no other such island to be 
found as Nooaheevah, nor a valley more happy than the vaMey of 
Tieuhoy: you who reside in the moon come to get the produce of 
our island; why would you visit us, if your own gods and your own 
island could supply all your wants. The gods of white men, we 
believe, are greater than our gods, because white men, are them¬ 
selves superior to us. The gods of white men Were intended for 
them aione. The gods of Nooaheevah were intended solely for 
us. I must here remark that these people are fully pursuaded 
that we reside in the moon, and that we owe the fairness of our 
skin entirely to the colour of that luminary; they are sensible that 
England and America are two distinct countries, or rather islands, 
or valleys situated in the same island; and they were astonished 
that while the two tribes were at war we should suffer our pri¬ 
soners to live. 
No people are more strongly attached to their soil than the 
natives of Nooaheevah; no persuasions whatever, no offers of re¬ 
ward (not even of whales’ teeth) can induce them to leave their 
beloved island, their friends, and relations. And the only times 
that 1 ever discovered anger strongly marked on their countenan¬ 
ces was when, for my amusement, I proposed to their children or 
brothers to take them to America. Indeed I should have been 
glad that one or two of their young men would have consented to 
go with me, if I had been certain of having it in my power to re¬ 
turn them to their native island: but the apprehension that this 
might not be the case, prevented my being so solicitous as I 
otherwise should have been. It is true, they have not the same 
aversion to leaving their island to search for other lands; but they 
are taught by traditions that those are not the countries of white 
men, they are islands abounding in bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, tarra, 
kava, and such other productions as are to them in higher esti¬ 
mation than any other; they are the lands belonging to the great 
nation of which they make a part, which speak the same language, 
