’I had slept on shore about three miles up the bay among a number of natives, twenty-five or twenty-six in the same room with me, on the previous evening:  at least, I lay down in my things, which, by the bye, were drenched through with salt and rain water.  They said I was the first white person that had been ashore there.  They treated me very well.  How in the face of all this could I run the risk of letting them think I was unwilling to trust them?  So I think still that I was right in all but one thing.  I ought to have ascertained better the nature of the current and the bottom of the harbour, to see if there was good holding ground.  But it is easier to do those things in an English port than in the sight of a number of natives, and especially when there is but one person able to communicate with the said natives.  If I went off in the boat sounding, who was to look after the schooner?  If I stayed on board, who was to explain to the natives what was being done in the boat?  Besides, we have but five men on board, including the master and mate, and one of them was disabled by a bad hand, so that if I had manned the boat, I should have left only three able-bodied men on board—­it was a puzzle, you see, dear Uncle.  Now I have entered into this long defence lest any of you dear ones should think me rash.  Indeed, I don’t want to run any risks at all.  But there was no risk here, as I supposed, and had we chosen to go round on the other tack we should have known nothing of a risk now.  As it was, we did run a great hazard of grounding on the reef, and therefore, Laus Deo.

’Oh! dear little Pena, if you had only seen the village which, as yet, I alone of white people have been allowed to see—­the great tall cocoa-nuts, so tall and slender at the top, that I was almost afraid when a boy was sent up to gather some nuts for me—­the cottages of bamboo and cocoa-nut leaves—­the great forest trees, the parrots flying about among the branches—­the crowd of men and children and a few women all looking at, and some talking to the strange chief, “who had spoken the truth and brought their kinsman as he promised,”—­the sea in the harbour shut off by small islets and looking like a beautiful lake with high wooded and steep banks—­the pretty canoes on the beach, and the great state canoe lying at its stone anchor about fifty yards off, about fifty feet long, and inlaid throughout with mother-of-pearl, the spears leaning against the houses—­men stalking about with a kind of club (the great chief Puruhanua gave me his);—­I think your little head would have been almost turned crazy....

’June 4th, Auckland.—­We reached harbour a week ago in a violent squall of wind and rain at 8.45 P.M.  Anxious night after the anchor was dropped, lest the vessel should drag.  Nine days coming from Norfolk Island, very heavy weather—­no accident, but jib-boom pitched away while lying to in a south-easter....

’Your loving nephew,