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 Sugar Loaf peak, from which the island derives its English name, and
found a small clear stream, flowing, through a rocky bed, back to the
village, where were some 300 people assembled; sat some time with them,
then went to the beach, where the boat soon came for me.
'After this there was a good deal of bad weather; but all the lads were
restored to their islands, including Aroana, the young Malanta chief,
who had begun by a fit of frenzy, but had since behaved well; and who
left his English friends with a promise to do all in his power to tame
his people and cure them of cannibalism.'
Then came some foul winds and hot exhausting weather.
'I have done little more than read Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," and
Helps's "Spanish America," two excellent books and most delightful
to me. The characters in the Spanish conquest of Mexico and America
generally; the whole question of the treatment of natives; and that
nobleman, Las Casas--are more intelligible to me than to most persons
probably. The circumstances of my present life enable me to realise it
to a greater extent.
'Then I have been dipping into a little ethnology; yesterday a little
Plato; but it is almost too hot for anything that requires a working
head-piece. You know I take holiday time this voyage when we are in open
water and no land near, and it is great relaxation to me.'
A pretty severe gale of wind followed, a sharp test of Patteson's
seamanship.
'Then came one day of calm, when we all got our clothes dry, and the
deck and rigging looked like an old clothes' shop. Then we got a fairish
breeze; but we can get nothing in moderation. Very soon it blew up
into a strong breeze, and here we are lying to with a very heavy sea.
Landsmen would call it mountainous, I suppose. I am tired, for I have
had an anxious time; and we have had but one quiet night for an age, and
then I slept from 9.30 P.M. to 7.30 A.M. continuously. 'It may be that
this is very good training for me. Indeed it must give me more coolness
and confidence. I felt pleased as well as thankful when we made the
exact point of Nengone that I had calculated upon, and at the exact
time.'
On the 20th of June, Auckland harbour was safely attained; but the
coming back without scholars did not make much of holiday time for their
master, who was ready to give help to other clergymen whenever it might
be needed, though, in fact, this desultory occupation always tried him
most.
On the 25th of July he says:--
'I have had a sixty miles' walk since I wrote last; some part of it over
wild country. I lost my way once or twice and got into some swamps, but
I had my little pocket-compass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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