312 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
witness their arrival. We then took leave of Maaro, 
and the chiefs that were with him. Messrs. Thurston 
and Bishop walked to the opposite side of the bay, 
where we had held a religious exercise yesterday, and 
here Mr. Thurston preached to an attentive congrega¬ 
tion of about sixty people. The head man afterwards 
expressed a strong desire to be instructed, and said all 
the people would like to learn the palapala, and keep 
the Sabbath-day. 
While they were on the western shore, I visited 
several houses on the eastern side of the settlement, 
and entered into conversation with the people on the 
subject of missionaries coming to reside at Waiakea. 
In general they approved, saying they had dark minds, 
and needed instruction. Some, however, seemed to 
doubt the propriety of foreigners coming to reside per¬ 
manently among them. They said they had heard that 
in several countries where foreigners had intermingled 
with the original natives, the latter had soon disap¬ 
peared ; and should missionaries come to live at 
Waiakea, perhaps the land would ultimately become 
theirs, and the kanaka maore (aborigines) cease to be 
its occupiers. I told them, that had been the case in 
some countries ; but that the residence of missionaries 
among them, so far from producing it, was designed 
and eminently calculated to prevent a consequence so 
melancholy. At the same time I remarked, that their 
sanguinary wars, their extensive and cruel practice of 
infanticide, their frequent intoxication, and their nume¬ 
rous diseases, partly gendered by vicious habits, had, 
according to their own account, diminished the popula¬ 
tion of the island three-fourths within the last forty 
years; and, from the destructive operation of these 
