They brought the females on shore and commenced building a house on the tabu ground; the king watching every movement, forbid their proceeding, and asked them by what authority they entered upon his consecrated grounds. Mr. Daylia replied, "By the Lord's authority." The king significantly said the Lord had nothing to do with the tabu ground, and again forbid their building there.
They persisting in staying, the king told them they might do so while they remained at peace with the other tribes, but should a war break out, they would be tattooed, or driven from the land.
Meetings were held each day, which Noyce and myself generally attended, at the request of the missionaries, as an example to the natives.
The Otaheitean and Marquisian languages are so nearly alike they could converse without an interpreter.
Daylia, in one of his meetings, said much about the good land and a bad land, telling them if they would be good and pray they would go to the good land, when they died. This he explained in a manner suited to their understanding. One of the chiefs jumped up and asked if the missionary who died at Nukuhivah (an English missionary who died about two years before) had gone to that good land. Mr. Daylia assured them he had, when, unwilling to believe it, they sent four men to that island, (about fifty miles) to get some of the bones. At the expiration of five or six days they returned, bringing bones with them; and at the next meeting, when Daylia was again telling of the good land, they set up a shouting, calling him a liar and showed him the bones. They told him he had been driven from his own land and had come to live with them, and he might stop preaching about his good land and his bad land, for they would not believe him. In vain were his remonstrances with them. They told him if he would climb a lofty cocoa-nut tree, which stood near, and jump among the rocks unhurt, they would believe him.
Still he held his meetings, but not with any degree of pleasantness, for the natives were as likely to set up a war dance as any thing else.
This was imputed to me by Mr. Daylia, who threatened to send me to England and have me severely punished. His threats I did not heed very much, though I should have been extremely glad to have been sent there.
One morning, at an early hour, going as usual to bathe, I met a servant of Mr. Daylia, who was a native of Otaheite, with an axe upon his shoulder. Having before been on good terms with him, I smilingly passed the compliment of the morning, (Kaoha, good morning) and was passing on. Accidentally turning my eye, I saw the axe uplifted, and aimed at my head. I fell upon my knees and evaded the blow. With earnestness I sprang and caught it, having one hand at the head and the other at the end of the helve, before he could again raise it.
Pulling hard as if to get possession of it, at the same time wrestling about, I brought the edge towards him, he also pulling with his might in endeavoring to hold it, when I suddenly relaxed my hold, still holding on the handle, drove the edge into his face, running obliquely across the nose. This was repeated twice, when he fell yelling most lustily.