A new incentive was added to the already cruel superstitions of the Natives. The Sandal-wooders, our degraded fellow-countrymen, in order to divert attention from themselves, stirred the Natives with the wild faith that the Missionaries and the Worship had brought all this sickness, and that our lives should be taken in revenge. Some Captains, on calling with their ships, made a pretence of refusing to trade with the Natives as long as I was permitted to live on the island. One Trader offered to come on shore and live amongst the Tannese, and supply them with tobacco and powder, and caps and balls, on condition that the Missionary and Abraham were got out of the way! He knew that these were their greatest wants, and that they eagerly desired these things, but he refused to make any sales to them, till we were murdered or driven away. This was fuel to their savage hate, and drove them mad with revenge, and added countless troubles to our lot.
Hurricane and tempest also fought against us at that time. On the 3rd, and again on the 10th March, 1861, we had severe and destructive storms. They tore up and smashed bread-fruit, chestnut, cocoa-nut, and all kinds of fruit trees. The ground was strewn thick with half-ripe and wasted fruits. Yam plantations and bananas were riven to pieces, and fences and houses lay piled in a common ruin. My Mission House was also greatly injured; and the Church, on which I had spent many weeks of labour, was nearly levelled with the ground. Trees of forty years’ growth were broken like straws, or lifted by the roots and blown away. At the other Station, all Mr. Mathieson’s premises except one bedroom were swept off in the breath of the hurricane. The sea rose alarmingly and its waves rolled far inland, causing terrible destruction. Had not the merciful Lord left one bedroom at my Station and one at Mr. Mathieson’s partly habitable, I know not what in the circumstances we could have done. Men of fifty years declared that never such a tempest had shaken their Islands. Canoes were shivered on the coral rocks, and Villages were left with nothing but ruins to mark where they had been. Though rain poured in torrents, I had to keep near my fallen house for hours and hours to prevent the Natives from carrying away everything I had in this world; and after the second storm, all my earthly belongings had to be secured in the one still-standing room.
Following upon this came another spate of thirst for our blood, which was increased in the following manner. Miaki the war Chief had an infant son, who had just died. They told us that four men were slain at the same time, that their spirits might serve and accompany him in the other world; and that our death also was again resolved upon. For four days they surrounded our diminished premises. We locked ourselves all up in that single bedroom, and armed savages kept prowling about to take our lives. What but the restraining pity of the Lord kept them from breaking in upon us? They killed our fowls. They cut down and destroyed all our remaining bananas. They broke down the fence around the plantation, and tried to burn it, but failed. They speared and killed some of the few goats—my sole supply of milk. We were helpless, and kept breathing out our souls in prayer; and God did preserve us, but, oh, what a trying time!
The horror grew, when shortly thereafter we learned that our people near the Harbour had killed four men and presented their bodies to certain Chiefs who feasted on them; and that they in return had given large fat hogs to our people, one for each of ten bodies which our people had formerly presented to them. Within a few months, thirteen or fourteen persons, nearly all refugees or prisoners of war, were reported to us as killed and feasted upon. We generally heard nothing of these murders till all was over, but in any case, I would have been helpless against their bloodthirst, even had I exposed myself to their savage enmity. They sent two dead bodies to our nearest village, where still we conducted Worship every Sabbath when we durst appear amongst them; but our people refused to receive them, saying, “Now we know that it is wrong to kill and eat our fellow-creatures.” A Chief from another village, being present, eagerly received them and carried them off to a great feast for which he was preparing.