His youth, it is true, had been stormy, like that of many a brand afterwards promoted to being a vessel. His worldly education was of the most elementary and indeed eleemosynary description, consequently he despised secular learning, and science “falsely so called.” It is recorded of him that he had almost a distaste for those difficult chapters of the Epistles in which St. Paul mentions by name his Greek friends and converts. In a controversy with an Oxford scholar, conducted in the open air, under the Martyrs’ Memorial in that centre of careless professors, Gowles had spoken of “Nicodĕmus,” “Eubŭlus,” and “Stephānas.” His unmannerly antagonist jeering at these slips of pronunciation, Gowles uttered his celebrated and crushing retort, “Did Paul know Greek?” The young man, his opponent, went away, silenced if not convinced.
Such a man was the Rev. Thomas Gowles in his home ministry. Circumstances called him to that wider field of usefulness, the Pacific, in which so many millions of our dusky brethren either worship owls, butterflies, sharks, and lizards, or are led away captive by the seductive pomps of the Scarlet Woman, or lapse languidly into the lap of a bloated and Erastian establishment, ignorant of the Truth as possessed by our community. Against all these forms of soul-destroying error the Rev. Thomas Gowles thundered nobly, “passing,” as an admirer said, “like an evangelical cyclone, from the New Hebrides to the Aleutian Islands.” It was during one of his missionary voyages, in a labour vessel, the Blackbird, that the following singular events occurred, events which Mr. Gowles faithfully recorded, as will be seen, in his missionary narrative. We omit, as of purely secular interest, the description of the storm which wrecked the Blackbird, the account of the destruction of the steamer with all hands (not, let us try to hope, with all souls) on board, and everything that transpired till Mr. Gowles found himself alone, the sole survivor, and bestriding the mast in the midst of a tempestuous sea. What follows is from the record kept on pieces of skin, shards of pottery, plates of metal, papyrus leaves, and other strange substitutes for paper, used by Mr. Gowles during his captivity.
II. NARRATIVE OF MR. GOWLES. {6}
“I must now, though in sore straits for writing materials, and having entirely lost count of time, post up my diary, or rather commence my narrative. So far as I can learn from the jargon of the strange and lost people among whom Providence has cast me, this is, in their speech, the last of the month, Thargeelyun, as near as I can imitate the sound in English. Being in doubt as to the true time, I am resolved to regard to-morrow, and every seventh day in succession, as the Sabbath. The very natives, I have observed with great interest, keep one day at fixed intervals sacred to the Sun-god, whom they call Apollon, perhaps the same word as Apollyon. On this day they do no manner of work, but that is hardly an exception to their usual habits. A less industrious people (slaves and all) I never met, even in the Pacific. As to being more than common idle on one day out of seven, whether they have been taught so much of what is essential by some earlier missionary, or whether they may be the corrupted descendants of the Lost Tribes (whom they do not, however, at all resemble outwardly, being, I must admit, of prepossessing appearance), I can only conjecture. This Apollon of theirs, in his graven images (of which there are many), carries a bow and arrows, fiery darts of the wicked, another point in common between him and Apollyon, in the Pilgrim’s Progress. May I, like Christian, turn aside and quench his artillery!
To return to my narrative. When I recovered consciousness, after the sinking of the Blackbird, I found myself alone, clinging to the mast. Now was I tossed on the crest of the wave, now the waters opened beneath me, and I sank down in the valleys of the sea. Cold, numbed, and all but lifeless, I had given up hope of earthly existence, and was nearly insensible, when I began to revive beneath the rays of the sun.
The sea, though still moved by a swell, was now much smoother, and, but for a strange vision, I might have believed that I was recovering my strength. I must, however, have been delirious or dreaming, for it appeared to me that a foreign female, of prepossessing exterior, though somewhat indelicately dressed, arose out of the waters close by my side, as lightly as if she had been a sea-gull on the wing. About her head there was wreathed a kind of muslin scarf, which she unwound and offered to me, indicating that I was to tie it about my waist, and it would preserve me from harm. So weak and exhausted was I that, without thinking, I did her bidding, and then lost sight of the female. Presently, as it seemed (but I was so drowsy that the time may have been longer than I fancied), I caught sight of land from the crest of a wave. Steep blue cliffs arose far away out of a white cloud of surf, and, though a strong swimmer, I had little hope of reaching the shore in safety.
Fortunately, or rather, I should say, providentially, the current and tide-rip carried me to the mouth of a river, and, with a great effort, I got into the shoal-water, and finally staggered out on shore. There was a wood hard by, and thither I dragged myself. The sun was in mid heavens and very warm, and I managed to dry my clothes. I am always most particular to wear the dress of my calling, observing that it has a peculiar and gratifying effect on the minds of the natives. I soon dried my tall hat, which, during the storm, I had attached to my button-hole by a string, and, though it was a good deal battered, I was not without hopes of partially restoring its gloss and air of British respectability. As will be seen, this precaution was, curiously enough, the human means of preserving my life. My hat, my black clothes, my white neck-tie, and the hymn-book I carry would, I was convinced, secure for me a favourable reception among the natives (if of the gentle brown Polynesian type), whom I expected to find on the island.
Exhausted by my sufferings, I now fell asleep, but was soon wakened by loud cries of anguish uttered at no great distance. I started to my feet, and beheld an extraordinary spectacle, which at once assured me that I had fallen among natives of the worst and lowest type. The dark places of the earth are, indeed, full of horrid cruelty.
The first cries which had roused me must have been comparatively distant, though piercing, and even now they reached me confused in the notes of a melancholy chant or hymn. But the shrieks grew more shrill, and I thought I could distinguish the screams of a woman in pain or dread from the groans drawn with more difficulty from a man. I leaped up, and, climbing a high part of the river bank, I beheld, within a couple of hundred yards, an extraordinary procession coming from the inner country towards the mouth of the stream.
At first I had only a confused view of bright stuffs—white, blue, and red—and the shining of metal objects, in the midst of a crowd partly concealed by the dust they raised on their way. Very much to my surprise I found that they were advancing along a wide road, paved in a peculiar manner, for I had never seen anything of this kind among the heathen tribes of the Pacific. Their dresses, too, though for the most part mere wraps, as it were, of coloured stuff, thrown round them, pinned with brooches, and often clinging in a very improper way to the figure, did not remind me of the costume (what there is of it) of Samoans, Fijians, or other natives among whom I have been privileged to labour.
But these observations give a more minute impression of what I saw than, for the moment, I had time to take in. The foremost part of the procession consisted of boys, many of them almost naked. Their hands were full of branches, wreathed in a curious manner with strips of white or coloured wools. They were all singing, and were led by a woman carrying in her arms a mis-shapen wooden idol, not much unlike those which are too frequent spectacles all over the Pacific. Behind the boys I could now distinctly behold a man and woman of the Polynesian type, naked to the waist, and staggering with bent backs beneath showers of blows. The people behind them, who were almost as light in colour as ourselves, were cruelly flogging