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
'All that were called upon to read did so fluently; the singing was
harsh and nasal enough, but in very good time; their counting very good,
and their writing on slates quite equal to the average performance, I
am satisfied, of a good English parish school. They listened attentively
when Mr. Inglis spoke to them, and when at his request I said a few
words, which he translated. The most perfect order and quiet prevailed
all the time we were in the school. At the end of the lessons they
came forward, and each one shook hands with Leonard Harper and myself,
smiling and laughing with their quick intelligent eyes, and apparently
pleased to see strangers among them.
'By this time it was dusk, and we went back to the Mission House, and
spent a pleasant evening, asking and answering questions about Anaiteum
and the world beyond it, until 8 P.M., when the boarders came to
prayers, with two or three persons who live about the place. They read
the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel in turns, verse by verse, and
then a prayer from Mr. Inglis followed. At 8.30 we had private family
prayers, and at 9 went to bed.
'July 16.--We got up at four, and were soon ready for our walk to the
south side of the Island; Mr. Inglis came with us, and ten or twelve
natives. For the first half-mile we walked along the beach among
cocoa-nut trees, bananas and sugar-canes, the sun, not yet above the
horizon, tingeing the light clouds with faint pink and purple lines,
the freshness of the early dawn, and the soft breeze playing about us,
gladdening at once our eyes and our hearts. Soon we struck off to the
south, and passing through taro plantations, began to ascend the slopes
of the island. As we walked along we heard the sound of the logs beaten
together, summoning the people to attend the various schools planted in
every locality, under the management of native teachers, and we had a
good opportunity of observing the careful system of irrigation adopted
by the natives for the cultivation of the taro plant. Following the
course of a small mountain stream, we observed the labour with which
the water was brought down from it upon causeways of earth, carried in
baskets from very considerable distances; occasionally the water-course
is led round the head of various small ravines; at other times the trunk
of a tree is hollowed out and converted into an aqueduct; but no pains
have been wanting to make provision for the growth of the staple food of
the island.'
From this scene of hope and encouragement the 'Southern Cross' sailed on
the sixteenth, and passing Erromango, came in sight of Fate, also called
Sandwich, a wooded island beautiful beyond description, but with a
bad character for cannibalism, and where the Samoan teachers had been
murdered. So the approach was cautious, and the vessel kept a mile from
the shore, and was soon surrounded with canoes, one of them containing a
native who had been instructed in Samoa, and was now acting as teacher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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