Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/92

 the water, and sometimes they let go and drop in. They are beautiful singers and are always humming. Nearly every night, about three bells, we were roused from our peaceful slumbers by the fair Tahitian mermaids, who would launch forth from their coral caves  with comb and glass in hand, their long hair floating in  the breeze. When they reached the beach just ahead of the ship, they would commence to sing. Richer, clearer, softer, or sweeter voices I never listened to in  any part of the world. That we might understand and join with them they would now and then sing in our  own language "Old Hundred" or "Coronation." They always wound up by singing some familiar sailor songs, which they had learned from the whalers, such as  "The Bay of Biscay," "Black-eyed Susan," "When will my Sailor Boy Come Home?" "Bonny Bunch of Roses, O,"



and "We Won’t Go Home till Morning." These Tahitian operas usually lasted till two or three o’clock in the  morning, when many of the singers would swim to the  ship and beg to come on board. Being refused, they would go back to their coral caves.

This group of islands was the first discovered in the South Pacific, and has been oftener visited than any  other islands. Their language was the first native language reduced to writing.

The first missionary society ever formed was in Scotland, and it was called the "Missionary Society," afterwards the "London Missionary Society." This society