’The other day I landed as usual among a crowd of old acquaintances, painted and armed, but of that I thought nothing.  Knowing them to be so friendly to us, instead of landing alone, I took two or three of our party to walk inland with me; and off we started, Mr. Dudley and Wadrokala being left sitting in the boat, which was, as usual, a short distance from the beach.  We had walked about half a mile before I noticed something unusual in the manner of the people, and I overheard them talking in a way that made me suspect that something had happened which they did not want me to know.  Petere had not made his appearance, though in general the first to greet us, and on my making enquiries for him, I was told that he was not well.  Not long afterwards I overheard a man say that Petere was dead, and taking again some opportunity that offered itself for asking about him, was told that he was dead, that he had died of dysentery.  I was grieved to hear this, because I liked him personally and had expected help from him when the time came for commencing a Mission station on the island.  The distance from the beach to the village where Petere lived is about one and a half mile, and a large party had assembled before we reached it.  There was a great lamentation and crying on our arrival, during which I sat down on a large log of a tree.  Then came a pause, and I spoke to the people, telling them how sorry I was to hear of Petere’s death.  There was something strange still about their manner, which I could not quite make out; and one of our party, who was not used to the kind of thing, did not like the looks of the people and the clubs and spears.  At last one of them, an old scholar of ours, came forward and said, “The men here do not wish to deceive you; they know that you loved Petere, and they will not hide the truth; Petere was killed by a man in a ship, a white man, who shot him in the forehead.”  Of course I made minute enquiries as to the ship, the number of masts, how many people they saw, whether there was anything remarkable about the appearance of any person on board, &c.  The men standing round us were a good deal excited, but the same story was told by them all.

’After a while I walked back to the beach, no indication having been made of unfriendliness, but I had not gone more than a quarter of a mile when three men rushed past me from behind, and ran on to the beach.  Meanwhile Mr. Dudley and Wadrokala in the boat were rather uneasy at the manner of the people standing near them on the reef; and they too suspected that something unusual had occurred.  Presently they saw these three men rush out of the bush on to the beach and distribute “kava” (leaves of the pepper plant) among the people, who at once changed their manner, became quite friendly and soon dispersed.  It was quite evident that a discussion had taken place on shore as to the treatment we were to receive; and these men on the beach were awaiting the result of the discussion, prepared to act accordingly.  There was scarcely any danger in our case of their deciding to injure us, because they knew us well; but had we been strangers we should have been killed of course; their practice being, naturally enough, to revenge the death of a countryman on the arrival of the next man who comes from what they suppose to be their enemies’ country.