good missionaries promised to furnish horses for the party, and Mrs. Lawes kindly offered me her favourite mare, a handsome chestnut, with silver mane and tail, the offspring of stock brought over by the prospecting party some years ago.
The Sunday was spent quietly on board, and as the ship's bell was summoning the voyagers to Divine service on the quarter-deck, we could hear the faint tinkling of the bell at the Missionary Station similarly calling the dusky worshippers to prayers. Even in savage New Guinea the blessed light of the Word of God is gradually dispelling the darkness of barbarism and cannibalism. It is amid such scenes as this that the Divine power of Christianity, to elevate and dignify humanity, is most fully apprehended. Only to think of the immense arc of moral ascent there is between a cannibal feast and a Christian Communion!
Although my apparatus and weapons of defence were always at hand, I had much trouble in making these up into portable packages for the native carriers, the impedimenta required for even a few nights of camping out being both bulky and heavy.
My assistant and myself were put on shore on Sunday afternoon, and took up our quarters at the hospitable Mission House, prepared to make an early start next morning. After tea, a religious service was held on the broad verandah, for the benefit of the pupils and servants at the station. Books containing the Gospels were handed round to the dusky worshippers, and some hymns, translated into Motu, which was the language used in the service, by Mr. Lawes. The Motu, like all other southern dialects, has a liquid softness and euphony of expression that reminds one of the Malayian tongue. While Mr. Chalmers read the prayers, the native boys and girls squatted around him, were very attentive and decorous in their bearing, and all joined devoutly in reading the responses. Their singing was notable for the careful manner in which they kept time and tune together, and though the melodies chosen were of the simplest kind, they well became the lips of those unsophisticated children of nature. Amongst the servants, it should be mentioned, was an old native woman, whom every one called Granny. Mrs. Lawes introduced this ancient dame to us as her Prime Minister,
