Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1835. DEPAUTURK REMARKS. fill my proper business to interfere, thovigh unavoidably I had become involved in tliem. By evening we had gained a good offing, and profited by it in the night, during a strong gale of wind from the eastward, with a lee current, setting to the north- west, about a knot an hour. When we sailed there was every appearance of a gale coming on, but all our necessary opera- tions were completed, and to have stayed an hour longer in that place would have been far worse than passing some hours in a gale of wind at sea. That the few notices here given of a small part of New Zealand are scanty and quite insufficient for those who seek general information, I am well aware : but the Beagle's stay was very short, and I have made it a principle in this narra- tive to restrict myself to writing what I or my companions collected on the spot : admitting a few quotations from other authorities, only where they seemed to illustrate or explain a particular subject, without requiring much space. To those interested about this important and rising country, I need hardly mention the volume of evidence taken before the House of Lords, as the latest, — and Cook's account as the earliest, — as well as best sources of information. I will now endeavour to draw attention to a few of the diffi- culties against which missionaries have to contend, while anx- iously labouring in their holy cause among Polynesian, Aus- tralian, and European infidels. It may be supposed that po- pulation and occasional intercourse had every where extended, even before the ever-memorable epoch, when the ' Victory ' was steered by the daring Magalhaens across an vinexplored ocean : but since that time, intercourse with Polynesia has so much increased, that the most interesting islanders — those of Ota- heite and the Sandwich Islands— are already more civilized than the natives of some of the Spanish settlements in America. The New Zealanders are improving ; so likewise are the natives of many other islands, which have been visited by mis- sionaries : but those islanders who have been altered only by the visits of whalers, sealers, and purveyors for Chinese epi- cures, have in no way profited. On the contrary, they have 2 R 2