difficult, arising from various reefs and currents. Although only twenty-
seven miles separate the two, it was Friday night before we anchored at
Murray Island. We went ashore the same night.

On Saturday, we climbed to the highest point of the island, seven hundred
feet high. There seems to be no lack of food, chiefly grown inland. From
the long drought, the island presented in many places a parched look, and
lacked that luxuriance of vegetation to which we had been so long
accustomed on Rarotonga.

At the forenoon meeting on Sunday there were nearly two hundred present.
Mr. McFarlane preached. A few had a little clothing on them; some seemed
attentive, but the most seemed to consider the occasion a fit time for
relating the week's news, or of commenting on the strangers present. The
Sabbath is observed by church attendance and a cessation from work. There
is not much thieving on the island; they are an indolent people. The
school is well attended by old and young, and Josiah, the teacher, has
quite a number of children living with him. They sing very well.

Several of the old men here wear wigs. It seems when grey hairs appear
they are carefully pulled out; as time moves on they increase so fast
that they would require to shave the head often, so, to cover their
shame, they take to wigs, which represent them as having long, flowing,
curly hair, as in youth. Wigs would not astonish the Murray islanders,
as Mr. Nott's did the Tahitians after his return from England. They soon
spread the news round the island that their missionary had had his head
newly thatched, and looked a young man again.

On Monday, the teachers' goods and mission supplies were put on board the
_Bertha_. On Tuesday afternoon, after everything was on board, a