“Mungaw made rather a sad New Year’s Day for us, though. While we were at breakfast, more people assembled in the Imrai and high words ensued. John went out to them, determined to sift the matter to the bottom; and at last it came out that Mungaw had gone the day before to the village of Towleka, and said that the people of Inahutshi were going to shoot them on the morrow, and then he deliberately walked to Inahutshi and told them the same thing about the people of Towleka. He was bent upon war; wanted, in his own words, ‘to see blood run.’ Burning houses, and he had burnt several, was becoming rather tame work; and he wanted something more exciting. He boastfully acknowledged the part he had acted the day before, declaring that if they had not _said_ they were going to fight they _meant_ it, which was worse—better to have it out and done with—why else were they carrying their muskets? This was a little too much for their patience, and they did lay about him with their tongues, saying it was he and he alone who had introduced this carrying of muskets, by flying about with his own and threatening to kill everybody. He then said, that if they were not going to fight they ought to come out boldly for the Worship (he certainly did not approve of doing things by halves), singling out by name those whom he knew to have little differences with each other, and ordering them to shake hands and exchange pigs there and then!
“When John thought they’d had enough of it, for Mungaw was getting excited with his nonsense, he suggested that one of them should engage in prayer and let them then get home. A fine old Chief stood up under the banyan tree, and, waving his hand with a majesty a Native can assume at times, offered a simple, earnest prayer, and the people quietly dispersed. But Mungaw tried hard to get them together again, and insisted upon everybody being converted on the spot. He kept on this religious tack for about a fortnight, which was very pleasant, as it allowed us to sit with open windows and doors, and get fresh air and freedom.
“One day, when he was unusually gushing and had presented a pig and food to the very men he had sought to murder,—his speech indicating that the Millennial Reign was about to commence on Aniwa under his auspices,—a Church member said, ‘I think, Mungaw, the people will understand us better, if we burn our muskets and show that we’ll not fight, whatever they may do; here goes mine!’ And suiting the action to the word, he broke and flung his musket into the flames. Mungaw immediately followed suit, with a grand flourish, to the intense relief of all around, for he was a much less formidable personage without the musket, though he still fancied himself a great king. He sent in for a black suit, and permission to conduct the Worship next Sunday, which of course he did not get.
“John sent for him and had long talks with him; but saw it was little use,—he was so crazed, and thought every one in the wrong but himself. His standing grievance against John was—that he kept all the collections (!) taken at the close of Mission addresses (he insisted they went into his private pocket), and did not halve them with him, though he helped him to speak.
“He never forgot the scenes he saw in that den of iniquity to which some wretches took him in Melbourne, under pretence of kindness, when John was unable from my sudden illness in the country to take him home. It bamboozled his then simple mind, how in a land of Gospel light such appliances could be deliberately and systematically set on foot for the on-carrying of evil. I do think, that for their light,—mind, I say _for their light_—our black Christianity is superior to the white. The Natives often said,—‘How is it, Missi, that he was so good and strong for the Worship before he went to your good Land, and has been nothing but a plague since he returned?’ John, of course, emphatically cleared the ‘good Land’ from all blame, adding that he would take care not to give any of the rest of them a chance of going daft by a trip to Australia! They don’t pursue the argument after that, as all are eager to go, and perfectly willing, they say, to accept the risk.