Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands Part 17

'The canoes did not venture to come off to us, so we went ash.o.r.e in the boat, Bishop and I wading ankle-deep to the beach. Forty or fifty natives under a deep overhanging rock, crouching around a fire, plenty of lads and boys, no women. Some Tanna men in the group, with their faces painted red and black, hair (as you know) elaborately frizzled and dressed with coral lime. The Futuma people speak a different language from those of Anaiteum, and the Tanna people speak a third (having, moreover, four dialects of their own). These three islands are all in sight of each other. Tanna has an active volcano, now smoking away, and is like a hot-bed, wonderfully fertile. People estimate its population at 10,000, though it is not very large,--about thirty miles long. At Futuma, the process by which these coral islands have been upheaved is well seen. The volcanic rocks are lying under the coral, which has been gradually thrust upwards by them. As the coral emerged, the animal went on building under water, continually working lower and lower down upon and over the volcanic formation, as this heaved in its upward course the coral formation out of the sea.'

Erromango was occupied by the Scottish Mission, and Mr. Gordon was then living there in peace and apparent security, when a visit was paid to him, and Patteson gathered some leaves in Dillon's Bay, the spot where John Williams met his death sixteen years before, not, as now was understood, because he was personally disliked, but because he was unconsciously interfering with a solemnity that was going on upon the beach.

At Fate Isle, the people were said to be among the wildest in those seas. When the 'Royal Sovereign' was wrecked, they had killed the whole crew, nineteen in number, eaten ten at once, and sent the other nine as presents to their friends. Very few appeared, but there was a good 'opening' exchange of presents.

A great number of small islets lie around Fate, forming part of the cl.u.s.ter of the New Hebrides, The Bishop had been at most of them before, and with a boat's crew of three Pitcairners and one English sailor, starting early and spending all day in the boat, he and Patteson touched at eleven in three days, and established the first steps to communication by obtaining 127 names of persons present, and making gifts. These little volcanic coral isles were all much alike, and nothing remarkable occurred but the obtaining two lads from Mai, named Petere and Laure, for a ten months' visit. Poor fellows, they were very sea-sick at first, and begged to go home again, but soon became very happy, and this connection with Petere had important consequences in the end. These lads spoke a language approaching Maori, whereas the Fate tongue prevailed in the other isles.

At Mallicolo, on August 20, a horrible sight presented itself to the eyes of the two explorers when they walked inland with about eighteen most obliging and courteous natives--an open s.p.a.ce with four hollowed trunks of trees surrounding two stones, the trees carved into the shape of grotesque human heads, and among them, a sort of temple, made of sloping bamboos and panda.n.u.s leaves meeting at the top, from whence hung a dead man, with his face painted in stripes of red and yellow, procured, it was thought, from the pollen of flowers. There was not enough comprehension of the language to make out the meaning of all this.

Ambrym, the next island, was more than usually lovely, and was destined to receive many more visits. The women made their approach crawling, some with babies on their backs. Whitsuntide, where the casks had to be filled with water, showed a great number of large, resolute-looking men, whose air demanded caution; 'but,' says the journal, 'practice makes perfect, and we get the habit of landing among strangers, the knack of managing with signs and gesticulations, and the feeling of ease and confidence which engenders confidence and good-will in the others.

Quarrels usually arise from both parties being afraid and suspicious of each other.'

Leper's Isle owes its unpleasant name to its medicinal springs. It is a particularly beautiful place, containing a population of good promise.

Three landings were made there, and at the fourth place Patteson jumped ash.o.r.e on a rock and spent some time in calming the fears of a party of natives who had been frightened in their canoe by the boat under sail overtaking them. 'They fingered bows and arrows, but only from nervousness,' he says. However, they seem to have suspected the visitors of designs on their load of fine taro, and it was some time before the owner would come out and resume it. On all these isles the plan could as yet only be to learn names and write them down, so as to enquire for acquaintance next time, either make presents, or barter them for provisions, discover the cla.s.s of language, and invite scholars for another time.

So at Star Island three or four natives said, 'In ten moons you two come back; very good, then we go with you.' 'I think,' Patteson tells his sisters, 'you would have liked to have seen me, standing on a rock, with my two supporters, two fine young men, who will I trust go with us next time, my arms round their necks, and a fine background of some thirty or forty dark figures with bows and arrows, &c., and two or three little rogues, perched on a point of rock above me, just within reach, asking for fish-hooks.' He says it in all simplicity, but the picture presupposes some strength of mind in the sisters who were to appreciate it.

Few natives appeared at Espiritu Santo, and the vessel pa.s.sed on to Oanuta or Cherry Island, where the Bishop had never been, and where a race of dull, good-natured giants was found. The chief was a n.o.ble-looking man with an aquiline nose, and seemed to have them well under command, and some of the younger men, who had limbs which might have been a model for a sculptor, could have lifted an ordinary-sized Englishman as easily as a child. They were unluckily already acquainted with whalers, whom they thought the right sort of fellows, since they brought tobacco and spirits, did not interfere with native habits, nor talk of learning, for which the giants saw no need. The national complexion here was of a lighter yellow, the costume a tattooed chest, the language akin to Maori; and it was the same at Tikopia, where four chiefs, one princ.i.p.al one immensely fat, received their visitors seated on a mat in the centre of a wide circle formed by natives, the innermost seated, the others looking over them. These, too, were accustomed to whalers, and when they found that pigs and yams in exchange for spirits and tobacco were not the object, they were indifferent. They seemed to despise fish-hooks, and it was plain that they had even obtained muskets from the whalers, for there were six in the chiefs house, and one was fired, not maliciously but out of display. The Bishop told them his object, and they understood his language, but were uninterested. The fat chief regaled the two guests with a cocoa-nut apiece, and then seemed anxious to be rid of them.

The Banks Islands, as usual, were much more hopeful, Santa Maria coming first. Canoes came round the vessel, and the honesty of the race showed itself, for one little boy, who had had a fish-hook given him, wished to exchange it for calico, and having forgotten to restore the hook at the moment, swam back with it as soon as he remembered it. There was a landing, and the usual friendly intercourse, but just as the boat had put off, a single arrow was suddenly shot out of the bush, and fell about ten yards short. It was curious that the Spanish discoverers had precisely the same experience. It was supposed to be an act of individual mischief or fun, and the place obtained the appropriate name of c.o.c.k Sparrow Point.

It was not possible to get into the one landing-place in the wall round Mota's sugar-loaf, but there was an exchange of civilities with the Saddleites, and in Vanua Lava, the largest member of the group, a beautiful harbour was discovered, which the Bishop named Port Patteson, after the Judge.

The Santa Cruz group was visited again on the 23rd of September. Nothing remarkable occurred; indeed, Patteson's journal does not mention these places, but that of the Bishop speaks of a first landing at Nukapu, and an exchange of names with the old chief Acenana; and the next day of going to the main island, where swarms of natives swam out, with cries of Toki, toki, and planks before them to float through the surf.

About 250 a.s.sembled at the landing place, as before, chiefly eager for traffic. The Volcano Isle was also touched at, but the language of the few inhabitants was incomprehensible. The mountain was smoking, and red-hot cinders falling as before on the steep side. It was tempting to climb it and investigate what probably no white man had yet seen, but it was decided to be more prudent to abstain.

Some events of the visit to Bauro are related in the following letter to the young cousin whose Confirmation day had been notified to him in time to be thought of in his prayers:--

'Off San Cristoval: October 5, 1857.

'My dearest Pena,--It was in a heathen land, among a heathen people, that I pa.s.sed the Sunday--a day most memorable in your life--on which I trust you received for the first time the blessed Sacrament of our Saviour's Body and Blood.

'My darling--, as I knelt in the chiefs house, upon the mat which was also my bed--the only Christian in that large and beautiful island--my prayers were, I hope, offered earnestly that the full blessedness of that heavenly Union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him with the Father and the Holy Ghost, might rest upon you for ever. I had reckoned upon being on board that Sunday, when the Holy Eucharist was administered on board our vessel; but as we reached Mwaata, our well-known village at San Cristoval, on Sat.u.r.day, we both agreed that I had better go ash.o.r.e while the vessel went away, to return for me on Monday. My day was now pa.s.sed strangely enough, my first Sunday in a land where no Sunday is known.

'It was about 3 P.M. on Sat.u.r.day when I landed, and it was an effort to have to talk incessantly till dark. Then the chief Iri went with me to his house. It is only one oblong room, with a bamboo screen running halfway across it about half-way down the room. It is only made of bamboo at the sides, and leaves for the roof. Yams and other vegetables were placed along the sides. There is no floor, but one or two gra.s.s mats are placed on the ground to sleep on. Iri and his wife, and an orphan girl about fourteen or fifteen, I suppose, slept on the other side of the screen; and two lads, called Grariri and Parenga, slept on my side of it. I can't say I slept at all, for the rats were so very many, coming in through the bamboo on every side, and making such a noise I could not sleep, though tired. They were running all about me.

'Well, at daylight I sent Gariri to fetch some water, and shaved and washed, to the great admiration of Iri and the ladies, and of others also, who crowded together at the hole which serves for door and windows. I lay down in my clothes, all but my coat, but I took a razor and some soap ash.o.r.e.

'Sunday was spent in going about to different neighbouring settlements, and climbing the coral rocks was hard work, the thermometer at sea being 85 in the cool cabin, as the Bishop told me to-day.

'Of course many people were at work in the yam grounds, several of which I saw; but I found considerable parties at the different villages, and had, on the whole, satisfactory conversations with them. They listened and asked questions, and I told them as well as I could the simplest truths of Christianity.

'I had a part of a yam and drank four cocoa-nuts during the day, besides eating some mixture of yam, taro, and cocoa-nut all pounded together.

'People offered me food and nuts everywhere. Walked back with a boy called Tahi for my guide, and stopped at several plantations, and talked with the people.

'Sat out in the cool evening on the beach at Mwaata, after much talk in a chiefs house called Tarua; people came round me on the beach, and again I talked with them (a sort of half-preaching, half-conversing these talks were), till Iri said we must go to bed. Slept a little that night.

'I can truly say that you were in my head all day. After my evening prayers, when I thought of you--for it was about 9 P.M. = 10.10 A.M.

with you, and you were on your way to church--I thought of you, kneeling between your dear mamma and grandmamma, and dear grandpapa administering to his three beloved ones the Bread of Life, and I was very happy as I thought of it, for I trust, through the mercy of G.o.d, and the merits of our Lord, that we shall be by Him raised at the Last Day to dwell with Him for ever. But indeed I must not write to you how very unworthy I felt to belong to that little company.

'This morning about eleven the vessel's boat came off for me, with the Bishop. I had arranged about some lads coming on with us, and it ended in seven joining our party. Only one of our old scholars has come again: he is that dear boy Grariri, whose name you will remember.

'Now I have had a good change of s.h.i.+rts, etc., and feel clean and comfortable, though I think a good night's rest will do me no harm. I have written to you the first minute that I had time. What a blessed, happy day it must have been for you, and I am sure they thought of you at Feniton.

'Your loving cousin,

'J. C. P.'

This strange Sunday was spent in conversation with different sets of natives, and that some distinct ideas were conveyed was plain from what old Iri was overheard saying to a man who was asking him whether he had not a guest who spoke Bauro: 'Yes,' said Iri, adding that 'he said men were not like dogs, or pigs, or birds, or fishes, because these cannot speak or think. They all die, and no one knows anything more about them, but he says we shall not die like that, but rise up again.'

On Monday, the 7th of October, Grera was revisited, and Toto, a last year's scholar, came forth with his welcome in a canoe; but it was rather a mixed success, for the danger of the vessel on her previous visit was a warning against bringing her into the harbour, where there was no safe anchorage, and this disappointed the people. Thirteen, indeed, slept on board, and the next morning sixty canoes surrounded the vessel, and some hundred and sixty came on deck at once; but they brought only one pig and a few yams, and refused to fetch more, saying it was too far--a considerable inconvenience, considering the necessity of providing the Melanesian pa.s.sengers with vegetable food. The whole nine slept in the inner cabin, Orariri on Patteson's sofa, 'feet to feet, the others on the floor like herrings in a barrel.'

The great island of New Caledonia was next visited. The Bishop had been there before, and Ba.s.set, one of the chiefs, lamented that he had been so long absent, and pleaded hard to have an English missionary placed in his part of the country. It was very sad to have no means of complying with the entreaty, and the Bishop offered him a pa.s.sage to Auckland, there to speak for himself. He would have come, but that it was the season for planting his yams; but he hoped to follow, and in the meantime sent a little orphan named Kanambat to be brought up at Auckland. The little fellow was pleased enough with the s.h.i.+p at first, but when his countrymen who had been visiting there left her, he jumped overboard and was swimming like a duck after them, when, at a sign from the Bishop, one of the Pitcairners leapt after him, and speedily brought him back. He soon grew very happy and full of play and fun, and was well off in being away from home, for the French were occupying the island, and poor Ba.s.set shortly after was sent a prisoner to Tahiti for refusing to receive a Roman Catholic priest.

Nengone were reached on October 23, and most of the old scholars were ready with a warm welcome; but Mr. Creagh, the London missionary, had taken Wadrokala away with him on an expedition, and of the others, only Kowine was ready to return, though the two married couples were going on well, and one previous scholar of the Bishop's and four new ones presented themselves as willing to go. Urgent letters from the neighbouring isle of Lifu entreated the Bishop to come thither, and, with a splendid supply of yams, the 'Southern Cross' again set sail, and arrived on the 26th. This island had entirely abandoned heathenism, under the guidance of the Samoans. The people felt that they had come to the end of the stock of teaching of these good men, and entreated for an Englishman from the Bishop, and thus, here was the third island in this one voyage begging for a shepherd, and only one English priest had been found to offer himself to that mult.i.tude of heathen!

The only thing that could be done was to take John Cho, a former St.

John's scholar, to receive instruction to fit him for a teacher, and with him came his young wife Naranadune, and their babe, whom the Bishop had just baptized in the coral-lime chapel, with three other children.

The next few days were spent in great anxiety for Wailumai, a youth from Grera, who was taken ill immediately after dinner with a most distressing difficulty of breathing. He proved to have a piece of sugar cane in his throat, which made every breath agony, and worked a small ulcer in the throat. All through the worst Patteson held him in his arms, with his hand on his chest: several times he seemed gone, and ammonia and sal volatile barely revived him. His first words after he was partially relieved were, 'I am Bishop! I am Patihana!' meaning that he exchanged names with them, the strongest possible proof of affection in Melanesian eyes. He still seemed at the point of death, and they made him say, 'G.o.d the Father, G.o.d the Son, and G.o.d the Holy Ghost! Jesus Christ, Son of G.o.d.' At last a favourable change took place, but he continued so ill for several days that his two attendants never did more than lie down in their clothes; nor was it till the third day that he at length coughed up the piece of cane that had caused the mischief. He still required so much care that Patteson did not go on sh.o.r.e at Norfolk Island when the five Pitcairners were exchanged for Mrs. Selwyn.

On November 15 Auckland harbour was again reached after this signally prosperous voyage. It is thus summed up in a letter written two days later:--

'November 17, 1857: St. John's College.

'My dear Miss Neill,--Thanks for your 21. 2s., and more thanks still for your prayers and constant interest in this part of the world. After nearly seventeen weeks at sea, we returned safely on Sunday morning the 15th, with thirty-three Melanesians, gathered from nine islands and speaking eight languages. Plenty of work for me: I can teach tolerably in three, and have a smattering of one or two more.

'One is the wife of a young man, John Cho, an old scholar baptized. His half-brother is chief of Lifu Isle, a man of great influence. The London Mission (Independents) are leaving all their islands unprovided with missionaries, and these people having been much more frequently visited by the Bishop than by the "John Williams," turn to him for help. By and by I will explain all this: at present no time.

'We visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading, swimming, &c.; all most friendly and delightful; only two arrows shot at us, and only one went near--so much for savages. I wonder what people ought to call sandal-wood traders and slave-masters if they call my Melanesians savages.

'You will hear accounts of the voyage from f.a.n.n.y. I have a long journal going to my father, but I can't make time to write at length any more.

I am up before five and not in bed before eleven, and you know I must be lazy sometimes. It does me good. Oh! how great a trial sickness would be to me! In my health now all seems easy. Were I circ.u.mstanced like you, how much I should no doubt repine and murmur. G.o.d has given me hitherto a most merciful share of blessings, and my dear father's cordial approbation of and consent to my proceedings is among the greatest....

'The anniversary of my dear mother's death comes round in ten days. That is my polar star (humanly speaking), and whensoever it pleases G.o.d to take my dear dear father to his rest, how blessed to think of their waiting for us, if it be His merciful will to bring me too to dwell before Him with them for ever.

'I must end, for I am very busy. The weather is cold, and my room full of lads and young men. If I was not watching like a cat they would be standing about in all sorts of places and catching cold.

'I send you in a box, a box made by Pitcairners of Pitcairn woods.

'Ever your loving old pupil,

'J. C. PATTESON.'