VISIT OF THE MISSION SHIP JOHN WILLIAMS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XXI, 23 November 1895, Page 633

VISIT OF THE MISSION SHIP JOHN WILLIAMS.

T'r TE are enabled with this week’s Graphic to give V y a portrait of the master of the ‘John Williams,’ which has just visited our port, and a few words about his career will no doubt be of interest to our readers. Though Captain Hore comes of a race of sailors, an ancestor of his, a Captain Hore, having been a sharer in the discovery of Newfoundland four hundred years ago, and more than one member of his family having held the highest office in the British Navy, he began his sea-faring life at the very lowest rung of the ladder. Destined for other pursuits, he served a brief period in a lawyer’s office, but when still very young he left the desk, determined to make the sea his profession, though it had to be undertaken without patronage or encouragement.

His first voyage was to Africa—the scene of many years’ missionary labour—after which he served in many ships in many capacities and in many seas, rapidly working his way upward, eventually becoming an officer in the P. and O. service, and obtaining his Master’s certificate. It was at this time that he formed the determination to devote his professional skill to the mission service. With this object he sought an interview with Bishop Selwyn, and made a voyage to Australia with a view to obtaining an appointment in the Melanesian Mission. Failing in this he tried for an appointment on the old ‘John Williams ’ under the London Missionary Society, but again unsuccessfully. For two years in succession he unsuccessfully sought for an opening on the misson vessel Harmony of the Moravian Missionary Society. A varied experience followed, during which he neglected no opportunity to influence for good all with whom he came in contact. Among other schemes, when on the Board of the English and Foreign Sailors’ Society he summitted, to that Society a scheme for using sea going ships as training ships for boys. In Demerara he was offered and accepted a position as sailors’ missionary. After this he held a position in the Circular Saw Line trading between Auckland and Sydney, and subsequently entered Harley College in East London to prepare himself for more systematic mission work. In connection with this College he introduced the use of a mission cutter for doing mission work among the ships visiting the port of London, the boat at the same time supplying a means of giving some nautical experience to the students of the College. While at this College the London Missionary Society entered into correspondence with him with a view to his undertaking special work in Central Africa, with the re suit that he spent eleven eventful years in this service. During this time he traversed no fewer than five times theeight hundred miles between Zanzibar and Lake Tanganyika. The arduous character of this journey may be in some degree estimated when it is known that there is only a foot track, and that the journey occupies three

months, and necessitates a train of several hundred men. On one of these journeys he conveyed a steel boat in sections, and after putting it together completed a survey of the thousand miles of the coast line of the greet inland Sea Tanganyika. Having fully accomplished the special work for which his services were secured, and his health having given way, he left Africa. On his return he was accorded a welcome by the Royal Geographical Society, before whom he read a paper of scientific interest, and who conferred upon him the

honour of a Fellowship, with a golden trophy for distinguished service. After travelling for the Missionary Society on deputation work in England, Australia, and America he was asked to transfer his services from Africa to Polynesia in connection with the new mission steamer ‘John Williams,’ of which vessel he assumed command on its arrival here, the present being his third voyage through Polynesia.

Captain Hore is author of ‘ Tanganyika,’ and Mrs Hore, who has accompanied her husband in his later African travels, has also written ‘ To Lake Tanganyika in a Bath Chair.’ Perhaps few men have possessed such varied qualifications for a missionary pioneer. A skilful seaman, a good speaker, a clever mechanic, an accurate observer, with such skill and tact in dealing with men that he is able to boast that though travelling amongst and living with Central African natives for years —at times alone —he has never given a wound nor received a scratch-

Captain Hore is fitted in no ordinary degree for the work in which he is engaged, and in which we wish him many years of service.