’I was somewhat anxious about revisiting an island called Tikopia.  Once we were there, five or six years ago.  The island is small, and the inhabitants probably not more than three hundred or four hundred.  They are Polynesians, men of very large stature, rough in manner, and not very easily managed.  I landed there and waded across the reef among forty or fifty men.  On the beach a large party assembled.  I told them in a sort of Polynesian patois, that I wished to take away two lads from their island, that I might learn their language, and come back and teach them many things for their good.  This they did not agree to.  They said that some of the full-grown men wished to go away with me; but to this I in my turn could not agree.  These great giants would be wholly unmanageable in our school at present.  I went back to the edge of the reef—­about three hundred yards—­and got into the boat with two men; we rowed off a little way, and I attempted, more quietly than the noisy crowd on shore would allow, to explain to them my object in coming to them.  After a while we pulled back to the reef, and I waded ashore again; but I could not induce them to let me take any one away who was at all eligible for the school.  Still I was very thankful to have been able twice to land and remain half an hour or more on shore among the people.  Next year (D.V.) I may be able to see more of them, and perhaps may obtain a scholar, and so open the island.  It is a place visited by whalers, but they never land here, and indeed the inhabitants are generally regarded as dangerous fellows to deal with, so I was all the more glad to have made a successful visit.

’Nothing could have been more delightful than the day I spent in making frequent landings on the north side of Santa Cruz.  This island was visited by Spaniards, under the command of Mendana, nearly three hundred years ago.  They attempted to found a colony there, but after a short time were compelled, by illness and the death of Mendana and his successor, to abandon their endeavour.  It is apparently a very fertile island, certainly a very populous one.  The inhabitants are very ingenious, wearing beautiful ornaments, making good bags woven of grass stained with turmeric, and fine mats.  Their arrows are elaborately carved, and not less elaborately poisoned:  their canoes well made and kept in good order.  We never before landed on this island; but the Primate, long before I was in this part of the world, and two or three times since, had sailed and rowed into the bay at the north-west end, called Graciosa Bay, the fine harbour in which the Spaniards anchored.  I went ashore this last voyage in seven different places, large crowds of men thronging down to the water’s edge as I waded to the beach.  They were exceedingly friendly, allowed me to enter the houses, sit down and inspect their mode of building them.  They brought me food to eat; and when I went out of the houses again, let me examine the large sea-going canoes drawn up in line on the beach.  I wrote down very many names, and tried hard to induce some young people to come away with me, but after we had pulled off some way, their courage failed them, and they swam back to the shore.