When the See of New Zealand was first formed, Archbishop Howley committed to the care of the first Bishop the multitudinous islands scattered in the South Pacific. The technical bounds of the diocese were not defined; but matters were to a certain degree simplified by Bishop Selwyn's resolution only to deal with totally heathen isles, and whatever superiority the authorised chief pastor might rightfully claim, not to confuse the minds of the heathen by the sight of variations among Christians, and thus never to preach in any place already occupied by Missions, a resolution from which he only once departed, in the case of a group apparently relinquished by its first teachers. This cut off all the properly called Polynesian isles, whose inhabitants are of the Malay type, and had been the objects of care to the London Mission, ever since the time of John Williams; also the Fiji Islands; and a few which had been taken in hand by a Scottish Presbyterian Mission; but the groups which seem to form the third fringe round the north-eastern curve of Australia, the New Hebrides, Banks Islands, and Solomon Isles, were almost entirely open ground, with their population called Melanesian or Black Islanders, from their having much of the Negro in their composition and complexion. These were regarded as less quick but more steady than the Polynesian race, with somewhat the same difference of character as there is between the Teuton and the Kelt. The reputation of cannibalism hung about many of the islands, and there was no doubt of boats' crews having been lost among them, but in most cases there had been outrage to provoke reprisals. These islands had as yet been little visited, except by Captain Cook, their first discoverer, and isolated Spanish exploring expeditions; but of late whalers and sandal wood traders, both English and American, had been finding their way among them, and too often acting as irresponsible adventurous men of a low class are apt to do towards those whom they regard as an inferior race.