Show A RING FUNG OF CORAL ROCK the following letter from a young missionary in the society islands to his father and mother who reside in weber county utah will be read with much interest OTEPA HAO october ath 1894 isles it is with much pleasure that I 1 cast away all thoughts of missionary duty and the responsibilities of my office and calling and say hello once more you cannot imagine how good it feels at this distance from home miles which is equal to ten times the distance from utah to england or germany when we consider mail facilities and allow ones thoughts to wander where they will in contemplation of home and its associations it is a luxury which it if indulged in too otten often becomes becoat s as productive of injurious results as that of eating too much pie I 1 have been blessed with wonderful control over myself in this respect thus far so much so that chilt time has never yet been heavy on my hands or seemed slow in passing though I 1 get home it will be the day t that hat I 1 have been looking forward to for years your letters of march aith april way may and june most of them written over two years after my departure from the land of milk and honey reached me adyth august aoth and september ath some of them being days or over five months en route they were about a month coming miles and the other three months coming the remal remaining ning soo miles when they reached their destination they found themselves outside of the pale ot of civilization which is my present residence a place few white men have ever seen the people here have a different language 0 altogether to the Tahiti aus gag though ou gh most of them understand some tahitian Tah iuan we do our preaching in the tahitian langual language ge as their language langua geis is not a written language and the bible is translated into the tahitian but i in n conversation we nave have to understand their unwritten language or else not understand all hao lies about miles east of tahiti and is visited about one or two times a month by some trading sloop so that we hear bear from the outside world once in a w while hile hilo hao like all the ret rest ot of the isles is circular in shape place a finger ring on the table think of the space outside the ring as the billowy ocean and the space inside as a lagoon ranging from ten to several hundred feet deep think of the narrow edge of the ring as land and you have hao all in a nutshell the ring of land being from twenty leet feet to a block wide this land Q is composed entirely of rock there is not a handful of soil on the island to be sure there are some sandy places but it is mostly all coral rock cocoanuts Cocoa nuts and a few non food pro trees grow freely and thelea the sea of course yields abundantly of fish the latter and cocoanuts cocoa nuts are the only native f foods worth mentioning by reason however of there being pearl shell in the lagoon fr for which the natives dive sometimes going as far as feet down and which brings a good price th eyare enabled to buy a little flour etc to keep body and soul alive if you people cannot canno t sit down to the table without having pie cake fruit or pud ding etc cry hard times and actually th think ink you are hard up were to come down here and see what a native lives on for a month or so the cry of hard times would be heard of no more for instance if you had cooked all your food on a bonfire as I 1 have done for months and as the poor natives do all the time you who lie on soft beds ride in carriages or buggies street cars and eat pie might well cry hard time and say were hard up would you like to know how I 1 live here then I 1 will tell you of a fe few w items though to tell you all would hii 1 e a book of considerable size we arise arise from our bed which consists of pine ne boards at a m and eat a anch aunch of bread when we have it or go without when we it and hot water or mormon tea as it is known here at 7 a 2 in we are at school we have 10 15 ap 20 or 50 pupils men and women the latter number when the people are gathered from all parts 0 of f the island we have them commit to memory and explain verses of scripture P and though you call us heathens athens he we can find and quote more S scripture vp ture than you civilized saints can we repeat a sentence and they repeat it after us in chorus this process being carried on until they can repeat the verse themselves methinks I 1 hear bear you whisper it must be tiresome upon which point I 1 have nothing more to say than the words of paul that tribulation patience looking at it in this licht light it becomes a i i e a school for us and if we learn our lessons well we will be rewarded for paul further says that patience experience peri ence and experience hope and hope not ashamed in one hour and a half we are th through rough wit with h school unless they want to stop another hour and talk over scripture which is not infrequent then if it is my turn to cook which comes every other day I 1 put our boy to work he is the best on the island and we build a bonfire bake our bread on some rocks or fry it if we have fish grease or lard lay our fish on the burning embers and by io 10 or 1030 a m we have dinner that is french fashion and we are in france now dinner over there are sick to be visited there may be only thirty or forty in the vil village lige vet at there is always someone down sick there have been six deaths here during the last two months out of a population of about four hundred or thereabouts most all of their ills are disorders of the stomach due to irregular living we then have a few hours to ourselves unless we are interrupted by some native coming in with a mannas thought or question which we spend in in studying the language reading scripture and and newspapers and letters from home and in hunting new material for sermons at 3 p m we have testimony meeting or school again we have two of the former and six of the latter per week four fou r meetings on sunday and from m thirteen to fifteen per week testimony meetings gene generally last from one and a half to three hours everyone saying something and all one subject some opportune time and some sot not then supper must be cooked after which we visit the saints and the sick singing and conversing and talking scripture with them our people are of course slow to learn but it keeps one hustling to find something sol new to talk about that us is suited to their understanding speaking of the sick people reminded me of as aa incident that occurred several weeks ago which will serve to illustrate several characteristics of my friends one of our sisters gave birth to a child and soon after her breast began to gather I 1 made a poultice of hard bard tack and condensed milk which we call cal by the dignified title bread and milk poultice and this I 1 placed upon the afflicted member leaving some more for future use A few minutes later my companion frank cutler passed by and saw that her breast was baret bare their common working dress being a lareu sheet tied around the loins our suspicions were aroused so we called next morning mornin momin in g ald and inquired was that good medicine c alta aita no said her husband that medicine that was food yes said his wife it was sweet food by inquiring further they confessed that as soon as I 1 was out of sight they took the poultice from her breast and ate it and what was left for another poultice also if a basket of fish is caught and brought in at mid night they will all get up make a bont fire and eat raw fish while some is cooking and never rest till all is gone then go back to bed again I 1 have made several voyages on schooners schoon ners qs the tast last year or so and upon these occasions I 1 had the opportunity to eat food cooked on a stove but the opportunity was As as much as I 1 could stomach because these little vessels roll and pitch so much that a few minutes suffices to turn one inside out it is pretty good to tb be on land if land is only rock but enough of nonsense I 1 suppose you want to know how I 1 am feeling I 1 reel feel thankful to have had the experience through which I 1 have passed I 1 am proud of the opportunity to be waging war against evil ignorance and superstition sti tion I 1 often feel feet to rejoice that awas I 1 was sent to a heathen country aj though I 1 often feet feel otherwise too and by comparing characteristics traits and customs I 1 am led to think that there are many he athens dwelling under the cloak of civilization I 1 am in in a peculiar conn try and among a peculiar peo people plo the people here have treated me well and I 1 never think of them without a sigh tor for them in their straightened circumstances they do not know what comfort is we utah people do not know what poverty is any more than they know what comfort is the poorest man in utah is rich compared with them I 1 am doing as as I 1 can expect under the circumstances nearly two and a halt years have passed since I 1 left my utah home and its dear associations and my experiences during durin that interval have been many and varied but whether riding in the elegant modern modem railroad car and dining at oise fine hotels hotels or being tossed upon the mighty deep in in a little boat or sleeping upon a mat M at of leaves I 1 look bark back to the days spent among my friends in hooper and elsewhere with fond remembrances and look forward with joy to the day when I 1 can dwell in their midst and enjoy their society I 1 have said will explain with the studa of the language and mail facilities m my seeming en in g negligence in not writing yot be before I 1 ex expect p act ere this reaches you you will ei 11 t think hink that I 1 have forgotten you or else something must be wrong our mission here is about like two doctors both calling upon a sick man at the same time and upon meeting in the house each lays aside his medicine and grasps one of the sick mans arms and each pulling in opposite directions direction st in an endeavor to obtain complete possession of the sick man fondly imagines that he be is doing his full duty dufy while each views the other with the air ot of one who sees the eyes of his opponent full of motes A swedish missionary of the josephite church preached a funeral sermon here recently and though he has been here twenty six years and since 1885 engaged as missionary and interpreter his own people and ours too said they could understand der stand me much better not one of the josephite missionaries from america hat has ever learned this language they have always had interpreters chave behave been vainly looking the last fifteen days for a vessel in theao the hopes es oft aring passage to attend october october ence but to look for ships here is ut as profitable an employment as iq okia ig for diamonds in in i t the he rocky bains I 1 have no cause to grumble hat however ever as I 1 have received mail etc with more regularity than I 1 anticipated I 1 would when I 1 was appointed to this fie field of labor it is now two years since I 1 sak saw a mountain it is two years since I 1 saw anything save sand coral rock anut ut trees and the sea there is oranti athing hl I 1 ing I 1 rica am glad to be able to miss miss that is your utah mud you will wih remember when I 1 left home I 1 thought I 1 was id coming to a rainy and fruit growing country it does not rain here as often as asat t does at home and mud is unknown on these island islan dF one could not wish for a finer climate nine out of ten days a cool sea breeze keeps the graceful cocoanut coco anut palms in constant agitation and sends the little sail boats of the natives flying across the lagoon while the roaring of of the breakers on the reef fu furnishes alches music in the absence of birds when I 1 tell you that nothing of value is to be found here outside of cocoanuts cocoa nuts fish and pearl shell you will most probably think and that truly that this must be a most uninteresting place to spend three or four years but we have out one of the wonders of the world here the like of which I 1 do not think can be found in all our country it would fill a small volume to tell all of the uses whick might be made of the cocoanut coco anut tree ano its fruit perhaps a short account of some of the uses the natives make of this would be interesting to you as it will serve to show some of their daily habits and customs the tree grows to a height of from ten to sixty or seventy leet feet its trunk being from ten to twelve inches in diameter with no branches whatever except a bunch at the top it thrives well in sand and even in places where nothing but coral rock can be seen in five or seven years after being planted it begins to bear fruit of the tree itself the natives make almost everything they use that is sot not eatable including house furniture clothing cooking utensils fuel boats ett etc of the trunk they make what we calta vaa canoe by chiseling chi out the inside and rounding founding off on the outside with an adze before the advent of the white men this was done with shells and it is the only kind of a boat these people originally made it must have been a most laborious task lor for it is hard wood the trunk also furnishes posts and rafters for their huts wood for spears wooden bowls and now answers for making bed posts etc though the peo pie where I 1 now am do not use beds of the leaves they make their houses churches etc braiding them into a mat some six by two feet and tied to rafters as we nail shingles of the leaves they also braid and weave all sorts of baskets and everything they have to carry is done in baskets the native carpets and mats are also made of them their hats ornaments of several kinds several varieties of fishing nets etc the stem from which the fruit has been planted serves as a broom while from a fibrous substance which binds the links to the trunk cloth was formerly made it now serves as a strainer to extract the oil froni from the nut strain their medicines etc and is extensively used to start a fire 1 besides being a good covering for their owners to keep in the heat and keep out the dirt it resembles the material gunny un sacks are made from A sheaf sheaf resembling sem bling the leaf of a century plant which grows rows with and is a protection to the staak stalk bearing the fruit contains considerable sid erable oil and burns readily with a bright light it is split up tied in long sticks about two inches thick and makes an excellent torch by the light of which the natives fish at night it the cocoa nut is the staple food the staff of life of the islander it is on his breakfast table which consists of mother earth and generally dirty hands it is back there at dinner time and is never absent at supper it is food for him his wife children his pigs pig cats dogs and chickens and if he has more than he can eat he dries it in the sun and sells it lor for four and five cents per kilo two and one fifth pounds while the money he gets for it is worth just half what our money is when dried it is called cobra and is shipped to europe and america where the oil is extracted and serves for innumerable purposes of the meat of the cocoanut coco anut the native extracts the oil and makes his perfume his hair oil which they all use profusely his lamp oil his medicine and many other things while he often mixes it up in his bread rice etc when he is fortunate enough to secure any and which makes a very palatable diso greatly improving the eating qualities of the articles mentioned and many others besides the milk of the young nut is a most refreshing beverage and discounts soda water though when I 1 first landed here I 1 dia did not like it it is a godsend god send that cocoa nuts grow and bear good water as well as fruit for the water is very bad here rain water is much prized no more by natives than by us as it is a great relief after drinking the hard salty island water where will you find another tree that |