The native teachers experienced many vicissitudes.
Some died from inability to stand the climate, some were massacred by the
men they were striving to bless; but the gaps were filled up as speedily
as possible, and the map recently issued (Jan. 1885) by the Directors of
the Society shows that on the south-eastern coast of New Guinea, from
Motumotu to East Cape, no less than _thirty-two native teachers_, some of
them New Guinea converts, are now toiling in the service of the Gospel.
In 1877, the Rev. James Chalmers joined the mission, and it is hardly too
much to say that his arrival formed an epoch in its history. He is
wonderfully equipped for the work to which he has, under God's
Providence, put his hand, and is the white man best known to all the
natives along the south coast. From the first he has gone among them
unarmed, and though not unfrequently in imminent peril, has been
marvellously preserved. He has combined the qualities of missionary and
explorer in a very high degree, and while beloved as "Tamate" (Teacher)
by the natives, has added enormously to the stock of our geographical
knowledge of New Guinea, and to our accurate acquaintance with the ways
of thinking, the habits, superstitions, and mode of life of the various
tribes of natives.
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