throws everything out of regular working order; but it always pays, the people like it, and it shows a confidence in them which helps us on.
'I was disappointed though in the morning, when Taroniara declined to come with me to this place.
'My people say, 'Why do you go away?'-the old stupid way of getting out of an engagement.' However, two others came to 'this place,' which was a hut in the village of Wango, which the Bishop had hired for ten days for the rent of a hatchet.
'A very sufficient rent too, you would say, if you could see the place. I can only stand upright under the ridge pole, the whole of the oblong is made of bamboo, with a good roof that kept out a heavy shower last night. There is a fresh stream of water within fifteen yards, where I bathed at 9 P.M. yesterday; and as I managed to get rid of strangers by 8.30, it was not so difficult to manage a shift into a clean and dry sleeping shirt, and then, lying down on Aunt William's cork-bed (my old travelling companion), I slept very fairly.
'People about the hut at earliest dawn; and the day seems long, the sustained effort of talking, the heat, the crowd, and the many little things that should not but do operate as an annoyance, all tire one very much. But I hope that by degrees I may get opportunities of talking about the matter that I come to talk about. Just now the trading with the vessel, which is detained here by the weather, and surprise at my half-dozen books, prevent any attention being paid to anything else.
'7 P.M.-The vessel went off at 10.30 A.M. I felt for a little while rather forlorn, and a little sinking at the heart. You see I confess it all, how silly! Can't I after so many years bear to be left in one sense alone? I read a little of you know what Book, and then found the feeling pass entirely away.
'But, more than that, the extreme friendliness of the people, the real kindness was pleasant to me. One man brought his child, 'The child of us two, Bishop.' Another man, 'These cocoa-nut trees are the property of us two, remember.' A third, 'When you want yams, don't you buy them, tell me.'
'But far better still. Many times already to-day have I spoken to the people; they have so far listened that they say, 'Take this boy, and this boy, and this boy. We see now why you don't want big men, we see now that you can't stop here long, what for you wish for lads whom you may teach, we see that you want them for a long time. Keep these lads two years.'
''Yes, two or three or four. By-and-by you will understand more and more my reason.'
'Then came the talks that you too may experience when dealing with some neglected child in London, or it may be in the country; but which, under the cocoa-nut tree, with dark naked men, have a special impressiveness. It was the old lesson, of the Eternal and Universal Father, who has not left Himself without witness in that He gives us all rain from Heaven, and of our ingratitude, and His love; of His coming down to point out the way of life, and of His Death and Rising again; of another world, Resurrection, and Judgment. All interrupted, now and then, by exclamations of surprise, laughter, or by some one beginning to talk about something that jarred sadly on one's ear, and yet was but natural. But I do hope that a week may pass not unprofitably. In one sense, I shall no doubt be glad when it is over; but I think that it may, by God's great goodness, be a preparation for something more to come.
'Last night, my little hired hut being crowded as usual, they all cried out at once 'Numu' (earthquake). I should not the least have known that anything had occurred. I said I thought it was a pig pushing against the bamboo wall of the hut. They say that they have no serious shocks, but very many slight ones. Crocodiles they have too, but, they say, none in this stream.
'July 22nd.-It is 9 P.M., the pleasantest time, in one sense, of my twenty-four hours, for there are only two people with me in the hut.
'My arrangements are somewhat simple; but I am very comfortable. Delicious bathes I have in the stream: yams and fish are no bad fare; and I have some biscuit and essence of coffee, and a few books, and am perfectly well. The mode of life has become almost natural to me. I am on capital terms with the people, and even the babies are no longer afraid of me. Old and young, men and women, boys and girls about me of course all day; and small presents of yams, fish, bananas, almonds, show the friendliness of the people when properly treated. But the bunches of skulls remain slung up in the large canoe houses, and they can be wild enough when they are excited.'
[The home diary continues, on the 26th]:-'I am expecting the schooner, and shall be glad to get off if it arrives to-day, for it is very fine. I don't think I could do any good by staying a few days more, so I might as well be on my way to Santa Cruz. If I were here for good, of course I should be busy about many things that it would be useless to attempt now, e.g., what good would it be to induce half-a-dozen boys to learn 'a,' when I should be gone before they could learn 'b'? So I content myself with making friends with the people, observing their ways, and talking to them as I can. It is hot, now at 8.30 A.M. What will it be at 2 P.M.? But I may perhaps be able to say something to cheer me up. One of the trials of this kind of thing is that one seems to be doing nothing. Simply I am here! Hardly in one hour out of the twenty-four am I sure to be speaking of religion. Yet the being here is something, the gaining the confidence and goodwill of the people. Then comes the thought, who is to carry this on? And yet I dare not ask men to come, for I am certain they would after all my pains find something different from what they expect.
My death would very likely bring out some better men for the work, with energy and constructive power and executive genius, all of which, guided by Divine Wisdom, seem to be so much wanted! But just now, I don't see what would become of a large part of the work if I died. I am leaving books somewhat more in order; but it is one thing to have a book to help one in acquiring a language, quite another to speak it freely, and to be personally known to the people who speak it.
'11th Sunday after Trinity.-Off Anudha Island, 4 P.M. Thermometer 88° in the empty cabin, everyone being on deck. Well, dear old Joan and Fan, refreshed by-what do you think? O feast of Guildhall and Bristol mayors! Who would dream of turtle soup on board the 'Southern Cross' in these unknown seas? Tell it not to Missionary Societies! Let no platform orator divulge the great secret of the luxurious self-indulgent life of the Missionary Bishop! What nuts for the 'Pall Mall Gazette'! How would all subscriptions cease, and denunciations be launched upon my devoted head, because good Mr. Tilly bought, at San Cristoval, for the price of one tenpenny hatchet, a little turtle, a veritable turtle, with green fat and all the rest of it, upon which we have made to-day a most regal feast indeed.
'But seriously. There has been much to make me hopeful, and something to disappoint me, since I last wrote.'
The two days at Santa Cruz were hopeful-[Mr. Atkin says that the natives came on board with readiness and stole with equal readiness; but this was all in a friendly way]-and a small island, named Piteni, was visited, and judged likely to prove a means of reaching the larger isle.
The disappointment is not here mentioned, unless it was the missing some of the Ysabel scholars, and bringing away only three; but this mattered the less, as the Banks Island party, which, as forming a nucleus, was far more important, was now considerable. Sixty-two scholars were the present freight, including nine little girls, between eight and twelve, mostly betrothed to old pupils.
At Malanta, a new village called Saa was visited. The 'harbour' was a wall of coral, with the surf breaking upon it, but a large canoe showed the only accessible place, and this was exposed to the whole swell of the Pacific.
'The natives,' writes Mr. Atkin, 'held the boat in water up to their knees, but the seas that broke thirty yards outside washed over their shoulders and sometimes their heads. We might have taken away half the people of the village, and had no trouble in getting two nice- looking little boys. About 320 miles from Norfolk Island, one of these little boys, Wate, playing, fell overboard: we were going ten knots at the time, right before the wind; it was a quarter of an hour before we picked him up, as it took five minutes to stop the vessel and ten to get to him. Wate seemed all the better for his ducking.' This little Wate became Mr. Atkin's especial child, his godson and devoted follower.
On October 2, Norfolk Island was reached, and there, a wooden house having been conveyed thither by H.M.S. 'Falcon,' Mr. Palmer and fifteen scholars were placed to spend the winter. The Pitcairners welcomed the Mission, but were displeased at the Government assuming a right to dispose of the land which they had fancied entirely their own.
One of the letters written separate from the journal during this voyage gives a commission for photographs from the best devotional prints, for the benefit chiefly of his young colonial staff:-'I have not the heart to send for my Lionardo da Vinci,' (he says), that much valued engraving, purchased at Florence, and he wishes for no modern ones, save Ary Scheffer's 'Christis Consolator,' mentioning a few of his special favourites to be procured if possible. For the Melanesians, pictures of ships, fishes, and if possible tropical vegetation, was all the art yet needed, and
