Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian IslandsYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Religion
Life of John Coleridge Patteson : Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Missions -- Melanesia; Patteson, John Coleridge, 1827-1871
The 'Southern Cross' reached Anaiteum on the 14th of July. This island
was occupied by Mr. Inglis and Mr. Greddie, of the Scottish Presbyterian
Mission, who had done much towards improving the natives. Small canoes
soon began to come off to the vessel, little craft consisting of no more
than the trunk of a tree hollowed out, seldom more than a foot broad,
and perhaps eighteen inches deep, all with outriggers--namely, a slight
wooden frame or raft to balance them, and for the most part containing
two men, or sometimes three or four. Before long, not less than fifteen
or twenty had come on board, with woolly hair and mahogany skins,
generally wearing a small strip of calico, but some without even this.
They were small men, but lithe and supple, and walked about the deck
quite at ease, chattering in a language no one understood except the
words 'Missy Inglis,' as they pointed to a house. Presently another
canoe arrived with a Samoan teacher with whom the Bishop could converse,
and who said that Mr. Geddie was at Mare. They were soon followed by a
whale boat with a Tahitian native teacher, a Futuma man, and a crew of
Anaiteans.
'The Futuma man had expended his energies upon his hair, which was
elaborately dressed after a fashion that precluded the possibility of
any attention being bestowed upon the rest of his person, which was
accordingly wholly unencumbered with any clothing. The perfection of
this art apparently consisted in gathering up about a dozen hairs
and binding them firmly with grass or fine twine of cocoa-nut fibre
plastered with coral lime. As the hair grows, the binding is lengthened
also, and only about four or five inches are suffered to escape from
this confinement, and are then frizzed and curled, like a mop or a
poodle's coat. Leonard Harper and I returned in this boat, Tahitian
steering, Samoan, Futuman, and Anaiteans making one motley crew. The
brisk trade soon carried us to the beach in front of Mr. Inglis's house,
and arrived at the reef I rode out pick-a-back on the Samoan, Leonard
following on a half-naked Anaitean. We soon found ourselves in the midst
of a number of men, women and children, standing round Mr. Inglis at the
entrance of his garden. I explained to him the reason of the Bishop's
being unable to land, that he alone knew the harbour on the other side
of island, and so could not leave the vessel.
'Then, having delivered the boxes and letters we had brought for him
from Auckland, we went into his house, gazing with delight at cocoanut
trees, bananas, breadfruit trees, citrons, lemons, taro, &c., with
bright tropical colouring thrown over all, lighting up the broad leaves
and thick foliage of the trees around us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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