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
'We went to their watering place, about a quarter or half a mile from
the beach, a picturesque spot in a part of the wood to which the water
from the hills is carried in canes of bamboo, supported on cross sticks.
The water was very clear and sweet, and one of our little guides soon
had a good shower-bath, standing under the shoot and then walking in the
sun till in a few minutes his glistening skin was dry again. Coming back
we met a man carrying water in cocoa-nut shells, six or eight hanging by
strings two feet long at each end of a bamboo cane slung across over
his shoulder, nicely balanced and very pretty. One of our party carried
perhaps two and a half gallons of water in a bamboo stuffed at the end
with grass. About five P.M. we went back to the schooner and made sail
for Bauro (San Cristoval).'
At this place there was a great disappointment at first in the
non-appearance of William Diddimang, an old baptized scholar at St.
John's; and though he came at last, and dined on board, he had evidently
so far fallen away as to be unwilling to meet the Bishop. The canoes
here were remarkably beautiful, built of several pieces, fastened with
a kind of gum. The shape was light and elegant, the thwarts elaborately
carved with figures of birds or fish, and the high prow inlaid with
mother-of-pearl let into black wood.
As a Sunday at sea was preferable to one among curious visitors who must
be entertained, the schooner put out to sea to visit one to two other
neighbouring islets, and then to return again to Bauro.
Kennell Island, where she touched on the 27th, proved to be inhabited by
Maoris. One man, who swam alone to the vessel, offered the salutation of
rubbing noses, New Zealand fashion, and converse could be held in that
language. Two more joined him, and spent the night on board in singing
a kaka or song of love for their visitors. Next day the island was
visited. 'Oh the beauty of the deep clefts in the coral reef, lined with
coral, purple, blue, scarlet, green, and white! the little blue fishes,
the bright blue starfish, the little land-crabs walking away with other
people's shells. But nothing of this can be seen by you; the coral loses
its colour, and who can show you the bright line of surf breaking the
clear blue of this truly Pacific Ocean, and the tropical sun piercing
through masses of foliage which nothing less dazzling could penetrate.
Our three friends, with two more men, their wives and children, form the
whole population of the south end of the island at all events, perhaps
twenty in all. I trod upon and broke flowering-branches of coral that
you would have wondered at.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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