POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
7 
high^ the sea roughs and the snow fell thickly around 
us. The inclemency of the weather favoured the silence 
we felt disposed to indulge; and although these were 
the last moments we were to spend with those whom 
kindness had prompted to attend us to the ship, the 
length and nature of the voyage before us, the thoughts 
that lingered with those, to whom, as we supposed, 
we had bidden adieu for ever, and the conviction that 
we must soon part with those who still sat beside us, 
to meet no more on earth, gave a melancholy solem¬ 
nity to our thoughts, and predisposed us to silence 
and reflection, rather than to conversation. When we 
reached the vessel, a scene was presented very incon- 
genial with the frame of our minds, and unlike the still¬ 
ness of the Sabbath. All was bustle and confusion. The 
decks were crowded with live stock, vegetables, &c. the 
cabins filled with packages and trunks, and the sailors 
all engaged in the various labours incident to getting 
ready for sea. The moment had now arrived when we 
were to separate from our last friends--we took an 
affectionate, though rather hurried leave of them, and 
committing each other to the benediction of Heaven, 
exchanged the parting hand at the vessel’s side. As 
their boat pushed off from the ship, they again bade us 
farewell by a signal, which we involuntarily returned,’ 
while we continued with indescribable emotion to watch 
their progress, until the intervention of some vessel, or the 
swelling of the waves, hid them entirely from our view.'* 
* They shortly afterwards embarked, and Commenced their labours in 
the East nearly as soon as we reached the distant islands in the South : 
two of them, however, I believe, only remain; the others have died in the 
Missionary field, and, after a short and laborious course, under a most 
inhospitable clime, have ended their toil, and entered into rest. 
