Mary Liddiard | Page 9

but even when she had
begun to speak, she made no allusion to the circumstances of the
massacre, or her life among the natives, and we forbore to ask her any
questions.
When at last we landed here, her alarm at seeing the natives was very
great, and my father was afraid that it would cause her mind to relapse
into its former state. By doing all we could to re-assure and cheer her,
no ill effects occurred. When once we were settled, and she had got
accustomed to the scenery, and the appearance of the people, her
improvement was more rapid. In course of time her mind and bodily
health were perfectly restored. On seeing me at my lessons, she showed
a strong wish to join me, and though she had forgotten even her letters,
if she had ever known them, she made rapid progress, so that she was
soon able to read fluently, when she eagerly perused every book my
father would allow her to have from his library. Even then, however,
she could give no account of her former life, and we knew no more of
little Maud than at first. My father and mother treated her as they would
a daughter, while I looked upon her and loved her as a younger sister.
We had now been upwards of three years at the Station. My father had
laboured on in faith, as a missionary in all regions must be prepared to
do, for as yet only the comparatively small body of Christians as I have
mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of
heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even
more hostile to the new faith than at first. Still my father would often
say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the

value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as
nothing." Such was the state of things at the mission station when my
history commences.
CHAPTER THREE.
THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC DESCRIBED.--MY MOTHER'S
ILLNESS.--NASILE, A MESSENGER FROM LISELE, COMES TO
THE SETTLEMENT, FOLLOWED SHORTLY BY LISLETE AND
MASAUGU, WHO PROMISES TO LOTU AFTER HE HAS
DEFEATED HIS ENEMIES.--MY FATHER WARNS HIM IN VAIN
OF THE FEARFUL DANGER HE RUNS BY PUTTING OFF
BECOMING A CHRISTIAN.
The vast Pacific--in one of the islands of which the events I am
describing occurred--presents a wide and hopeful field for missionary
enterprise. It is scattered over with numberless islands--in most cases
so clustered together as to form separate groups--some rising in lofty
mountains out of the sea, surrounded by coral reefs, beautiful and
picturesque in the extreme, while others are elevated but a few feet
above the ocean, generally having palm trees growing on them. These
latter are known more particularly as coral and lagoon islands. The
islands of the character I have last mentioned have been produced by
the gradual sinking of the land beneath the ocean, when on its reaching
a certain depth, countless millions of coral insects have built their
habitations on it, and have continued building till they reached the
surface--the new islands consequently keeping the forms of the
submerged lands which serve as their foundations. The lagoon islands
have been formed by the insects building round the edge of some
submerged crater. As the land sank the creatures have continued to
build upwards, and thus a ring of coral rock has arisen in the
ocean--sometimes complete, at others with a break or opening in it. In
other instances the coral insects have built near the shore, and as the
land has sunk they have continued to build upwards, but in
consequence of requiring the pure salt water, have not advanced
towards the land, which, however, still sinking, a wide space of water
has appeared between it and the structure raised by them. This is the

cause of the numerous encircling reefs which are found around so many
of the islands of the Pacific--affording harbours within them, and
sheltering the shore from the fury of the waves.
Many of the islands are also of volcanic origin; some contain active
volcanoes, and while the land in some instances has sunk, in others it
has risen, and is broken into the most curious and fantastic shapes,
bringing up also with it the coral rocks which were formed on it while
it lay beneath the sea.
Most of these islands are clothed with a varied and rich vegetation. The
climate of those at a distance from the equator is generally healthy, but
that of others near the line, especially to the westward, is unhealthy in
the extreme, so that even the natives of other islands of the same ocean
cannot live on them throughout the year.
The eastern groups are inhabited by a brown