Chief Pouta hesitated.  Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was launched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the Miro.

As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had stood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the boat; and he spoke words like these:  “Your bravery is our strength.  Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace.  You give them greater confidence in us than all our words.”

By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch.  Tamate went over the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel, Iko, and Vaaburi.  The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the landing place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of space.

As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without hesitating a second, stepped out with Iko.  Together they walked up to the chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of peace.

Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors.  But none of the white people knew a word of his meaning.

Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their midst.

Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear, spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko.

“We have come,” he said, “so that we may be friends.  We have come without weapons.  We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for we come in peace.  We are strangers.  But we come with great things to tell.  Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell you all our message.  To-day we come only to make friends.”

Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of Iala.

Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly:  “Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can.  My plan for a first visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly.  When we are gone they will talk to one another about us.  Next time we come we shall meet friends.”

So they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank, and got into the canoe again:  the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly through the water toward the launch.  As they climbed her side, the anchor was weighed, the Miro swung round, her engines started, and, carried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses of silent men who lined the banks.

It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no man has penetrated before.  But it is a greater thing to do as these missionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path of friendship into savage lives.  To do that was the greatest joy in Tamate’s life.  For he said, when he had spent many years in this work: