CHAPTER X
WESTWARD HO!
THE following day was the Niué Sunday. It had been my intention to sail soon after daybreak, but Mr. Lawes seemed to be so anxious that we should attend the morning service that I agreed. It seems that the influence of the Mission is waning from a variety of causes. Chief among these is the passion for foreign travel, which, having been the cause of the peopling these remote spots, still possesses all the natives of the smaller Polynesian islands. Every year numbers of young men return from abroad and disturb the still waters of the island with fascinating tales of the emancipation of foreign lands, where men get drunk and swear and break the Sabbath with impunity. They play upon the mercantile instinct of the old men with garbled stories, told them by beachcombers, of the money that the missionaries make out of the natives. Every year Mr. Lawes,
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