No men have I ever seen so large-huge Patagonian limbs, and great heavy hands clutching up my little weak arms and shoulders. Yet it is not a sensation of fear, but simply of powerlessness; and it makes one think, as I do when among them, of another Power present to protect and defend.
'They perfectly understood my wish to bring away lads. Full-grown Brobdignag men wished to come, and some got into the boat who were not easily got out of it again. Boys swam off, wishing to come, but the elder people prevented it, swimming after them and dragging them back. It was a very rough, blustering day; but even on such a day the lee side of the island is a beautiful sight, one mass of cocoa- nut trees, and the villages so snugly situated among the trees.
'Just been up the rigging to get a good look at this great encircling reef at Vanikoro. Green water as smooth as glass, inside the reef for a mile, and then pretty villages; but there is no passage through the reef, it is a continuous breakwater. We are working up towards a part of the reef where I think there may be a passage. Anyhow I am gaining a good local knowledge of this place, and that saves time another year.
'The ten lads on board talk six languages, not one of which do I know; but as I get words and sentences from them, I see how they will 'work in' with the general character of the language of which I have several dialects. It is therefore not very difficult to get on some little way into all at once; but I must not be disappointed if I find that other occupations take me away too much for my own pleasure from this particular branch of my work.'
A long letter to Sir John T. Coleridge gives another aspect of the voyage:-
''Sea Breeze' Schooner: off Rennell Island. 'Therm. 89° in shade; lat. 11° 40', long. 160° 18' 5'. 'September 7, 1862.
'My dear Uncle,-I can hardly keep awake for the unusually great heat. The wind is northerly, and it is very light, indeed we are almost becalmed, so you will have a sleepy letter, indeed over my book I was already nodding. I think it better to write to you (though on a Sunday) than to sleep. What a compliment! But I shall grow more wakeful as I write. Perhaps my real excuse for writing is that I feel to-day much oppressed with the thought of these great islands that I have been visiting, and I am sadly disappointed in some of my scholars from San Cristoval.
'Leaving New Zealand on June 20th, I sailed to Norfolk Island, where I held my first Confirmation. By desire of the Bishop of Tasmania, I act as Bishop for the Norfolk Islanders. This was, as you know, a very solemn time for me; sixteen dear children were confirmed. Since that time I have visited very many islands with almost unequalled success, as far as effecting landings, opening communication, and receiving native lads are concerned. I have on board natives from many places from which we have never received them before. Many I have left with Mr. Dudley and Mr. Pritt on Mota Island at school, but I have now twenty-one, speaking eleven languages. At many places where we had never landed, I was received well.
'The state of things, too, in the Banks Islands is very encouraging. What do you think of my having two married (after their fashion) couples on board from the Solomon Islands (San Cristoval and Contrariete)? This was effected with some difficulty. Both the men are old scholars, of course. I ought therefore to be most thankful; and yet my heart is sad because, after promises given by Grariri and his wife, Parenga and Kerearua (all old scholars, save Mrs. Garm), not one came away with me yesterday, and I feel grieved at the loss of my dear boys, who can read and write, and might be taught so much now! It is all very faithless; but I must tell it all to you, for indeed I do not feel as if I had any right to expect it otherwise, but in the moment of perceiving and confessing that it is very good for me, I find out for the first time how much my heart was set upon having them.
'And then San Cristoval, sixty miles long, with its villages and languages, and Malanta over eighty miles long, and Guadalcanar, seventy! It is a silly thought or a vain, human wish, but I feel as if I longed to be in fifty or a hundred places at once. But God will send qualified men in good time. In the meanwhile (for the work must be carried on mainly by native teachers gathered from each island), as some fall off I must seek to gain others. Even where lads are only two, or even one year with mer and then apparently fall back to what they were before, some good may be done, the old teaching may return upon them some day, and they may form a little nucleus for good, though not now.
'As for openings for men of the right sort, they abound. Really if I were free to locate myself on an island instead of going about to all, I hardly know to which of some four or five I ought to go. But it is of no use to have men who are not precisely the kind of men wanted. Somehow one can't as yet learn to ask men to do things that one does oneself as a matter of course. It needs a course of training to get rid of conventional notions. I think that Norfolk Island may supply a few, a very few fellows able to be of use, and perhaps New Zealand will do so, and I have the advantage of seeing and knowing them. I don't think that I must expect men from England, I can't pay them well; and it is so very difficult to give a man on paper any idea of what his life will be in Melanesia or Kohimarama. So very much that would be most hazardous to others has ceased to be so to me, because I catch up some scrap of the language talked on the beach, and habit has given an air of coolness and assurance. But this does not come all at once, and you cannot talk about all this to others. I feel ashamed as I write it even to you. They bother me to put anecdotes of adventures into our Report, but I cannot. You know no one lands on these places but myself, and it would be no good to tell stories merely to catch somebody's ear. It was easier to do so when the Bishop and I went together, but I am not training up anyone to be the visitor, and so I don't wish anybody else to go with me. Besides Mr. Pritt and Mr. Dudley are bad swimmers, and Mr. Kerr not first-rate. My constant thought is 'By what means will God provide for the introduction of Christianity into these islands,' and my constant prayer that He will reveal such means to me, and give me grace to use them.
'What reality there is in such a work as this! What continual need of guidance and direction! I here see before me now an island stretching away twenty-five miles in length! Last night I left one sixty miles long. I know that hundreds are living there ignorant of God, wild men, cannibals, addicted to every vice. I know that Christ died for them, and that the message is for them, too. How am I to deliver it? How find an entrance among them? How, when I have learnt their language, speak to them of religion, so as not to introduce unnecessary obstacles to the reception of it, nor compromise any of its commands?
'Thank God I can fall back upon many solid points of comfort- chiefest of all, He sees and knows it all perfectly. He sees the islanders too, and loves them, how infinitely more than I can! He desires to save them. He is, I trust, sending me to them. He will bless honest endeavours to do His will among them. And then I think how it must all appear to angels and saints, how differently they see these things. Already, to their eyes, the light is breaking forth in Melanesia; and I take great comfort from this thought, and remember that it does not matter whether it is in my time, only I must work on. And then I think of the prayers of the Church, ascending continually for the conversion of the heathen; and I know that many of you are praying specially for the heathen of Melanesia. And so one's thoughts float out to India, and China, and Japan, and Africa, and the islands of the sea, and the very vastness of the work raises one's thoughts to God, as the only One by whom it must be done.
'Now, dear Uncle, I have written all this commonplace talk, not regarding its dulness in your eyes, but because I felt weary and also somewhat overwrought and sad; and it has done me much good, and given me a happy hour.
'We had our service on board this morning, and the Holy Eucharist afterwards; Mr. Kerr, two Norfolk Islanders, a Maori, and a Nengone man present. I ought not to be faint-hearted. My kind love to Aunt and Mary.
'Your affectionate and dutiful Nephew,
'J. C. PATTESON, Missionary Bishop.'
The climate of Mota had again disagreed with Mr. Dudley, who was laid up with chronic rheumatism nearly all the time he was there; and the Bishop returned from his voyage very unwell; but Mr. Pritt happily was strong and active, and the elder Banks Island scholars were very helpful, both in working and teaching, so that the schools went on prosperously, and the custom of carrying weapons in Mota was dropped.
On November 7 the 'Sea Breeze' was again in harbour; and on the 15th, after mature consideration, was written this self-sacrificing letter:-
'St. Andrew's: November 15, 1862.
'My dearest Sisters,-I returned from a voyage unusually interesting and prosperous on the 7th of this month; absent just nineteen weeks. We were in all on board seventy-one.
'I found all your letters from April to August 25. How thankful I am to see and know what I never doubted, the loving manner in which my first and later letters about New Zealand were taken. How wise of you to perceive that in truth my judgment remained all through unaltered, though my feelings were strongly moved, indeed the good folk here begged me to reconsider my resolution, thinking no doubt kindly for me that it would be so great a joy to me to see you. Of course it would; were there no other considerations that we already know and agree upon, what joy so
