An Uxorious Monarch.

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herself. When he objected that he could not leave her alone, she replied, "It would be much better to leave me alone than to neglect so many people. If you can arrange for the work to be carried on here, you ought to go."

On his way to Ono Mr Calvert touched at Vatoa, where the good seed had been sown by a native who had been converted while on a visit to Lakemba. The entire population of sixty souls had turned from their evil ways, and were diligently inquiring after truth. At Ono Mr Calvert baptized two hundred and thirty-three persons, and united sixty-six couples in marriage. Among the former was the daughter of the most influential chief in the island, upon whom was bestowed the ill-chosen name of Jemima.

This young lady had been betrothed in her infancy to the old heathen King of Lakemba, who already possessed some thirty wives. Polygamy being clearly opposed both to the spirit and letter of Christianity, Mr Calvert refused to perform the baptismal rite unless she and her father distinctly pledged themselves to break off this unhallowed engagement. This they readily promised, but the heathens at Ono became alarmed at the blow thus struck at an institution so dear to sensualists as a plurality of wives. They accordingly pressed the old king to insist on the fulfilment of the betrothal, and he, being nothing loath, fitted out a fleet to fetch the damsel. In vain Mr Calvert expostulated with the old wretch, and warned him not to tempt the anger of the Most High. The king was obstinate, and set out on a Sunday with eleven canoes, several of which were manned with fighting men and piratical sailors. Though touching at each island on the

way, it was only at Vatoa that the people were plundered and wantonly ill-treated, for no other reason than that they were Christians. From this island four canoes, containing a hundred armed men, were sent on to prepare for the king's arrival, but were never more heard of. At last the king himself sailed with a fair wind, but was never permitted to reach Ono. Not only did the wind become adverse, but quickly freshened to a gale, and after a night of great danger, he was glad to accept kindness and hospitality from the Christians of the little island of Totoya. In the end the poor girl was left in peace, though unable to marry any one else, as the king refused to cancel the engagement.

By 1842 the entire population of Ono had embraced Christianity, and with a seriousness that gave just promise of steadfastness. In 1846 the Rev. John Watsford took up his abode in this island for twelve months, and placed matters on a firm and permanent footing. In addition to his spiritual labours, Mr Watsford applied himself to the material improvement of the natives. He set up a machine to assist them in making rope and cinet. He tried to introduce pumps into their canoes, and blocks into their rigging. He also tended them in sickness, and generally exerted himself to promote their temporal as well as their eternal welfare.

But while helping his neighbours, he stood himself in sore need of kindly aid. His wife was confined without the most ordinary comforts being attainable. "It was an anxious time," he wrote. "If it please God, I never wish to be alone again on such an occasion; and I wish that no other brother, with experience anything like mine, will ever be alone at such a time. It is going through the fire; and a mission

ary should, if called to it, pass through the burning flame; but it is questionable whether it is well to take him, or let him go through it." A smaller, but yet a very real and vexatious annoyance were the mosquitoes. "There cannot possibly be any place in the world, I should think," he adds, "as bad as Ono for mosquitoes. I thought Rewa was bad enough, but it is nothing to Ono. No rest day or night; I cannot tell you how we have been tormented. When your letters came, we did not know what to do to get them read. We could not sit down to it. We had to walk, one with the candle and one reading, and both thrashing at them with all our might. We could not sit to get our food. And although we did everything we could to keep them out of the curtains, yet they get in in numbers, and we can get no sleep. Mrs W. was wearied out, and James was bitten most fearfully. . . . I am scratching and kicking with all my might while I write this."

He complains, too, of the badness of the flour: "We have had to throw a good deal away; and what we eat is very bad; it sticks to one's teeth, and not to one's ribs." To save them from the voracity of the Ono mosquitoes, Mr Watsford's successor, the Rev. David Hazlewood, placed his wife and two children on an islet two or three miles from the shore. The remedy, however, nearly proved worse than the disease. A fearful hurricane blew down their house, from which they escaped with difficulty to a smaller house, belonging to one of the teachers, and which was propped up so as to hold together through the night. Early in the morning, however, the waves breaking higher and higher, compelled them to flee to a shed a little further inland, and it was not until the third day that Mr Hazlewood was able to join his wife and little ones. But however dis

agreeable their personal experiences, the missionaries who have laboured at Ono, one and all, bear joyful testimony to the thoroughness of the change that has been wrought in the character of the islanders, whom they unanimously pronounce to be the most consistent and earnest Christians to be found in the Fijian Archipelago.

In some of the islands the Romish priests were the greatest obstacle to the success of the Protestant missionaries. In order to counteract the mild teachings of the latter, the Papists would talk blusteringly of the menof-war that were coming to destroy the houses of those who interfered with their work. They had even recourse to unseemly outrages, but which only recoiled upon themselves; for the people, contrasting the meekness, benevolence, and pure morality of the Wesleyan missionaries with the irritability and arrogance of the Romanists, together with their laxity as to polygamy and the decorous observance of the Sabbath, had sense enough to see that the religion inculcated and illustrated by the former was very superior to the superstition paraded by the latter. natural result, Popery found little favour in the eyes of the Fijians, and not only were few converts made, but even these, for the most part, went over to the Protestant missionaries.

As a

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FIJI ISLANDS.

Alarms-Hindrances and calamities-Horrors of heathenism-War between Rewa and Mbau-Mr Moore's house burnt-Mrs Moore's narrow escape-Noble conduct of Mrs Calvert and Mrs Lyth-Thakombau's inconsistency-Death of the old king-A horrible scene-A cannibal orgie prevented-Dr Seemann's views-Thakombau's conversion-Improvements-The Mbua Mission-Its comparative failure.

ALTHOUGH the King of Rewa had invited the missionaries to establish a station in his town, it soon appeared that his desire to befriend them was greater than his power. Even in landing, several of their cases were stolen or broken open, and it was with some trouble that the printing apparatus was saved from injury, if not destruction. The opposition was exceedingly violent, being headed by the king's brother, a man of a passionate and imperious disposition. The breaking out of a severe form of influenza was also ascribed to the god of the foreigners, but these laboured so incessantly to succour the afflicted that in the long-run this visitation procured them more friends than enemies.

One evening, however, while they and their disciples were engaged in prayer, three musket-balls whizzed past their ears; and on the following day a fire broke out, dangerously close to their premises, but one of the king's brothers who was well-disposed towards the mission pre