64 A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.

moment to his side, and the two began, in their
soft, liquid, rolling language, conversing with the
utmost vivacity, pointing with their fingers te
each of the plates, and showing, by the expression
of their countenances, that they felt, indeed, alive !

“Ah! you would like to return to the South
Sea Islands; is it not so?”

“Yes! yes!”

There was no mistake about it; they were pining
for their distant land, and for the sunny skies of
the south. Alas! the chief was not destined again
to behold them, for he died not many weeks after-
wards, “astranger in a strange land,” and without
even the solace of his fellow-countryman’s presence
in his last moments. It was not apprehended that
his end was at hand, and they were at a distance
from each other. The missionary’s wife alone was
present to soothe the dying pillow, and to point
the eye of the Christian South Sea Islander to the
heavenly home, where he is now, it is humbly
hoped, numbered with ‘‘the great multitude of
all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,
who have washed their robes, and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.”

At the time when this incident occurred, I was
not acquainted with the narrative of Peron’s expe-
dition, and though I had often admired the exqui-
sitely beautiful coloured figures of zoophytes in