was nearly up.  We landed our things that day, and immediately after breakfast on Wednesday, December 5th, we went ashore to reside; and about ten a.m. the Bertha left.  On the Tuesday, Mr. McFarlane and I visited several villages on the mainland:  three in a deep bay, which must be very unhealthy, from the many swamps and high mountains around.  The people appeared friendly, and got very excited over the presents we gave them.

We got an old foretopsail from the captain, which we rigged up as a tent, in which the teachers slept, we occupying their quarters.  We enjoyed a good night’s rest.  In early morning the house was surrounded with natives, many of whom were armed.  They must wonder at our staying here:  they consider our goods to consist entirely of hoop-iron, axes, knives, and arrowroot.  About eleven a.m. the war canoes were launched on the opposite side of the water.  The excitement here was then great.  I met a lad running with painted skulls to the war canoe of the village.  Soon it was decorated with skulls, shells, cocoanuts, and streamers, and launched.  Those on the opposite side came out into the deep bay; ours remained stationary till the afternoon, when about thirty men got into her, and away towards Farm Bay to trade their hoop-iron for sago.

On Sunday, we met for our usual public services under a large tree, and a number of natives attended, who of course could not make out what was said, as they were conducted in Rarotongan.  At our morning and evening prayers numbers are always about who seem to enjoy the singing.  We see quite a number of strangers every day—­some from Brumer Island, Tissot, Teste, China Straits, Catamaran Bay, Farm Bay, and other places.  Those from Vakavaka—­a place over by China Straits—­are lighter and better-looking than those here.  The women there do not seem to tattoo themselves.  Here they tattoo themselves all over their faces and bodies, and make themselves look very ugly.  I have not seen one large man or woman amongst them all.

We had much difficulty in getting a sufficient supply of plaited cocoanut leaves for the walls and roof of our house.  By the 14th, we had the walls and roof finished, when all our party moved into it.  We had a curtain of unbleached calico put up between the teachers’ end and ours, and curtains for doors and windows, but were glad to get into it in that unfinished state:  the weather was breaking, and we felt anxious about the teachers sleeping in the tent when it rained, and we had no privacy at all where we were, and were tired of squatting on the ground, for we could not get a chair in our part of the house; indeed, the flooring was of such a construction that the legs of a chair or table would have soon gone through it.  On the 13th, we were busy getting the wood we had cut for the flooring of our house into the sea to be rafted along; got ten large pieces into the water by breakfast-time.