Fish were at times abundant, and they had a good many pigs, which were allowed to run wild. The natives, he said, were a very friendly, well-disposed people, of whom we saw two very promising examples in the canoe alongside.
We were obliged to get under way after only half an hour's stay, when our Portuguese friend shoved off, heavily laden with presents, and bidding us an affectionate farewell.
On the following morning (September 4th) we reached Oatáfu, the most westerly island of the group, and the ship was hove to at about three miles distance from that part of the island where the native settlement is situated. A boat was then sent in, from which a party landed, but not without some difficulty, it being found necessary to anchor the boat outside the line of breakers, and obtain the services of a native canoe to bring us through the surf.
We were received by the natives with every demonstration of good-will, and were at once conducted to the house of the native missionary teacher, who seemed to a great extent to occupy the position of a chief. We found the worthy old gentleman seated on a mat in the corner of his hut, a position from which he never stirred during the time of our visit. After drinking cocoa-nut milk, and exchanging some ceremonious remarks with the teacher through the imperfect medium of a native interpreter, we extricated ourselves from the crowd of natives that hemmed us in, and started on a stroll of inspection through the settlement.
The men are fine specimens of the Polynesian race, well-built and with frank, open countenances; but the women are much inferior to them, both in good looks, and, as it seemed to me, in manners.
A great number of both sexes were affected with a rather unsightly skin-disease, evidently of a parasitic character, which they call "peeter." It begins on the chest and shoulders in small circular patches somewhat resembling "ringworm," and eventually extends over the entire cutaneous surface, causing desquamation of the cuticle, and giving rise to a very distressing itching. When the disease has become well established, the skin exhibits grooves of the "snail-track" pattern, which intersect each other in various directions; so that on examining at a few yards distance a man who is extensively diseased, he seems at first sight as if covered with artificial cicatrices, arranged so as to represent some hieroglyphic device. They possess no remedy for this disease, and were therefore extremely anxious to obtain from us some treatment for it. In other respects they seem to be a very healthy people.
We crossed the narrow strip of land—only a few hundred yards wide—on which lies the settlement, and then found ourselves on the margin of an extensive lagoon, on the smooth sandy beach of which outrigger canoes in great numbers were hauled up. The island is an irregular atoll, that portion on which we were being continuous for about three-fifths of the circle, while the remaining portion was made up by a straggling chain of islets.
During our subsequent stroll through the settlement, I obtained some information from an intelligent native who spoke a little English, and seemed to be one of the principal people. He seemed to be very proud of his small stock of knowledge concerning "Britannia," as he called Great Britain, and was very particular in explaining that he was a Protestant, and disapproved strongly of Catholicism, which he looked on as the height of infamy. He was therefore surprised and much crestfallen at hearing that all Englishmen were not Protestants.