’This story may show you that caution is necessary long after the time that a real friendship has commenced and been carried on.  We never can tell what may have taken place during the intervals of our visits.  I returned to the village, with Mr. Kerr and Mr. Dudley and slept ashore, thinking it right to restore mutual confidence at once; and there was not the slightest risk in doing so.

’Now let me tell you about an island called Ambrym, lying to the south of Aurora and Pentecost, the two northernmost islands of the New Hebrides group.

’Ambrym is a grand island, with a fine active volcano, so active on this last occasion of our visiting it, that we were covered and half-blinded by the ashes; the deck was thickly covered with them, and the sea for miles strewed with floating cinders.  We have repeatedly landed in different parts of the island, but this time we visited an entirely new place.  There was a considerable surf on the beach, and I did not like the boat to go near the shore, partly on that account, but chiefly because our rule is not to let the boat approach too near the beach lest it should be hauled up on shore by the people and our retreat to the schooner cut off.  So I beckoned to some men in a canoe (for I could not speak a word of the language), who paddled up to us, and took me ashore.

’As I was wading to the beach, an elderly man came forward from the crowd to the water’s edge, where he stood holding both his arms uplifted over his head.  Directly that I reached him, he took my hand, and put it round his neck, and turned to walk up the beach.  As I walked along with him through the throng of men, more than three hundred in number, my arm all the while round his neck, I overheard a few words which gave me some slight clue as to the character of their language, and a very few words go a long way on such occasions.  We went inland some short distance, passing through part of a large village, till we came to a house with figures, idols or not, I hardly know, placed at some height above the door.

’They pointed to these figures and repeated a name frequently, not unlike the name of one of the gods of some of the islands further to the north; then they struck the hollow tree, which is their native drum, and thronged close round me, while I gave away a few fish-hooks, pieces of red braid, &c.  I asked the names of some of the people, and of objects about me, trees, birds, &c.  I was particularly struck with two boys who kept close to me.  After some time I made signs that I would return to the beach, and we began to move away from the village; but I was soon stopped by some men, who brought me two small trees, making signs that I should plant them.

’When I returned to the beach, the two boys were still with me, and I took their hands and walked on amidst the crowd.  I did not imagine that they would come away with me, and yet a faint hope of their doing so sprang up in my mind, as I still found them holding my hands, and even when I began to wade towards the boat still close by my side in the water.  All this took place in the presence of several hundred natives, who allowed these boys to place themselves in the boat and be taken on board the schooner.