150 Years Ago

Arrival of Missionaries In Tahiti

From Our Own Correspondent

M Tahiti, Mar. 4.

ARCH 5, 1947, is the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing at Matavai, on Tahiti, of the first missionaries of the London Missionary Society. J This anniversary was celebrated in all the Protestant Churches of French Oceania, on Sunday, March 2.

The ship “Duff”, which brought the missionaries, is known throughout the islands by the name “Te Rapu”. The story is, that on March 4, 1797—the day before the “Duff” arrived—Tahiti was shaken by an earthquake. The Tahitians thought the “Duff” had something to do with it, and they named her “Te Rapu”— the stirrer-up; and the name has endured.

The history of the “Duff” missionaries has been so ablv told in the “PIM” by the late Mr. W. W. Bolton, that there is nothing this writer may add, except this: The “Duff”, on her return voyage, discovered the grouo of islands to which the Captain gave the name “Gambier”, in honour of the great patron of the LMS, Lord Gambier. Mr. Bolton—the historian of LMS missionary enterprise in the South Pacific—was a member of the family of that Lord Gambier.

The Hon. J. B. Trotter, MLC, manager of Bums Philp & Co. (SS) Ltd. in Fiji- Mr. L. T. Lawlor, of Pearce & Co. Ltd’, Suva; and Messrs. Rutter and Donaldson, of the CSR Co. staff in Fiji, were guests of the Old Fijians Luncheon Club at the Wentworth Hotel, Sydney, on April 11