A.—3c

24

approached Erromango, one of the New Hebrides group, and sent in two boats at a district called Unapang. Both boats entered South Eiver (about twelve miles south of Dillon's Bay, where the Mission House and Martyr's Church stand), the one in charge of a white man going to the south side of the stream, and the other, in charge of Nomoo, a native of Sulphur Bay, near Port Resolution, Tanna, drew up at the north side. This Tanna man bought two or three yams, a few sticks of sugarcane, a bunch or two of cocoanuts, and a bow and arrows from the natives of Unarevin (a village about one mile north of South Eiver), and when they wished to sell more he said they had plenty of these things in their vessel. He paid the natives for what he purchased from them in pipes and tobacco. He asked the Unarevin men to draw up the bow of his boat on the shore. They did so. He then said he would like to drink water, and asked if he would be safe in doing so. They replied that he would be perfectly safe to land and drink water, and pointed to their school-house at Unarevin, where he called them to go on to the river, and further stated that the people of South Eiver were about to get a teacher, and already had got their school-house up. Nomoo then landed, revolver in hand, and went to the side of the stream, bent down, resting himself with his hands on the roots of a banyan tree, but rose without drinking, and walked slowly back in the direction of the boat, and as he was passing a row of women, who were sitting on the ground, he suddenly halted, turned, and grasped at the shoulder of Utokatak, a young woman, who instantly bending forward, Nomoo fell forward on his hands. The woman sprang to her feet and ran off; Nomoo, directly he got up, and before he was quite erect, fired under his left arm at a man named Yulimyow, and shot him in the side. Yulimyow was standing near, smoking his pipe, and looking at the boat and the people gathered about her, and knew nothing until he was shot. He called out, "I am shot," and ran up the side of the hill into the " bush." He was not mortally wounded, and has since recovered. The moment Nomoo got fairly up he ran after the young woman, Utokatak, and fired at her, but failed to hit her. He overtook her and grasped her hand. She called out to her father, and struggled out of the Tanna man's grasp and again ran off. He soon caught her, however, and this time, holding her firmly round the body, dragged her into the boat, she crying and struggling. Her father, Lovo, a high chief, called out to the natives, " See, he has thrice caught my child, fired on her, and has now dragged her into the boat; and are you going to allow that ? are you not going to strike (kill) ? " and at once himself picked up a stone and followed Nomoo to the boat, but seeing him secure his daughter firmly around the body with his left arm, while he caught the sfceer-oar in his right hand, he dropped the stone and turned to go away, when the natives in the bows of the boat shot him in the back, and he fell down in the surface-water, calling out in his dying struggle to a friend, " Norwei, they have killed me." The three natives, who we afterwards learnt were from the Island of Api, rowed the boat off, while Nomoo, the Tannese, steered and held his prize. The white man got a boy, said also to have been kidnapped, but of that there is no proof. An Erromangan fired after the white man's boat after those in the other boat stole the girl and murdered her father, but he did not hit the boat or any one in her. The girl was transferred into the white man's boat, along with the little boy Netevune, and so carried off and put onboard the " Ceara," while the boat in charge of the black man, without a Government agent, and not even a white sailor or mate with them, pulled along the coast till within about four miles of the anchorage in Dillon's Bay, when they landed and called to Umo, one of my teachers, to bring to them a bird (owl) he had in his hand —that they wished it. Umo went to the boat with the bird. Nomoo took it from him and dropped it behind him in the bows of the boat, took up a few sticks of tobacco in his left hand, and stepped out upon the coral shelf while he held in his right hand his revolver. He placed the tobacco in Umo's hand, and grasped his wrist with the same hand. Umo suddenly pulled his hand out of Nomoo's grasp, and the latter placed his revolver to Umo's right side and shot him. Umo fell in the surface-water (low water or half-tide at the time), but, springing to his feet again, ran as for his life towards the rocks, and was pursued by Nomoo, who fired on Umo a second time just as he was entering the scrub. Umo ran but a short distance when death ended his sufferings. The first shot was mortal; the second never struck him at all. Nomoo returned to the boat, threw out the owl, and they at once made for the ship, which was passing across Dillon's Bay from south to north, under shortened sail, waiting for the boat to come in sight. Directly the boat rounded the south point of Dillon's Bay the " Ceara " made sail and went round, as we supposed, to Elizabeth Bay, which is seven miles north of Dillon's Bay, and where Captain Satine generally called for wood and water. A native, by name Nareeovi, who was with Umo when Nomoo called him to bring him the owl to the boat, and who fled when Nomoo shot Umo, arrived at Dillon's Bay just as the " Ceara " was passing the north point of Dillon's Bay, to inform us that a boat's crew of black men from the vessel then in the bay had murdered Umo, the teacher, and that the friends had gathered to carry the body to Bampoontomasee, his native village, while he had come on to tell us of what had happened. Next morning I went on to bury Umo, and found five sticks of tobacco in the water in close to the shore and some 200 ft. or so from where they had been put into Umo's hand by his murderer. When I arrived at the village I found that the ball or bullet had passed through Umo's body, passing out of the lower rib on the left side, and out of this opening about two inches of the bowel protruded. I returned home in the evening, but too late to send word to Captain Satine that evening. Next morning, that is, on the 7th of September, I sent word by Netevune, a chief, but as he gained the table-land he saw the " Ceara " leave Elizabeth Bay and proceed north. The " Ceara," as we supposed, took in wood and water at Elizabeth Bay, and Captain Satine paid Nalinewei, the chief, for some sandalwood he had purchased from him on a previous trip, but never mentioned that anything had taken place at Unapang and Eampoontomasee on the sth, and neither the girl Utokatak nor the boy Netevune was seen on deck during the time, almost two days, that the vessel lay at anchor in Elizabeth Bay. We had not heard anything of the murders and kidnapping at South Eiver until the day after we buried Umo. Hugh A. Eobeetson, Missionary of Erromanga.