Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/135

Rh husks, and the sheaves were of iron-wood. To obtain planks, trees were split with wedges, and then cut up with hatchets. One anchor was of stone, and another of iron-wood, and the provisions consisted of pigs, cocoanuts, bananas, and other tropical products. In this vessel he sailed during the next four years to many islands of the Pacific, distributing teachers among them, and doing everything in his power for the good of the people. In 1834 he visited England, and returned in the missionary ship Camden, which had been purchased by the London Missionary Society.



Mr. Williams continued his work until 1839, when he, with a companion missionary, James Harris, was murdered by the natives of the New Hebrides Islands, whither he had gone to plant a mission. The stories of the conversion of the people of the Tonga, Samoan, and Feejee groups is only scarcely less romantic than what has just been narrated of the Hervey Isles. In all these islands, as well as in the Sandwich and Society groups, it is probable that the proportion of the inhabitants who observe the Sabbath, attend divine service, and gather in their