Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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'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.

'The first canoe that came had five men on board. Girdles of
beautifully plaited cocoa-nut fibre round their waists were their
only clothing, but some had wreaths of flowers and green leaves round
their heads, and most of them wore mother-of-pearl shells, beads,
&c., round their necks and in their ears. They do not tattoo, but
brand their skins. All five came, and presently three more, and then
another; but seeing a large double canoe with perhaps twenty men in
her coming close, we stood away. Two of our visitors chose to stay,
and we have them on board now: Alsoff, a man of perhaps forty-five,
and Mospa, a very intelligent young man from whom I am picking up
words as fast as I can. F. would have laughed to have seen me
rigging them out in calico shirts, buttoning them up. Mospa gave me
his wooden comb, which they push through their hair, as you ladies do
coral or gold pins at parties. Another fellow whose head was
elaborately frizzled and plastered with coral lime, departed with one
of my common calico pocket-handkerchiefs with my name in Joan's
marking. This is to adorn his head, and for aught I know, is the
first, and certainly the best specimen of handwriting in the island.
We hope to call at all these islands on our way back from the north,
but at present we only dodge a few canoes, &c.

'July 20.--I suppose you like to know all little things, so I tell
you that our Fate friends, being presented each with a blanket, just
wound themselves up on the cabin floor, one close to Leonard and me,
and slept away in style; that I soon taught them to eat with a knife
and fork, and to-day have almost succeeded in making them believe
that plum pudding (our Sunday dish) is a fine thing.

'July 21.--All day we have been very slowly drifting along the west
side of Espiritu Santo. A grand mountainous chain runs along the
whole island, the peaks we estimate at 4,000 feet high. This alone
is a fine sight--luxuriant vegetation to nearly the top of the peaks,
clouds resting upon the summit of the range, from the evaporation
caused by the vast amount of vegetable matter.

'As we were lying to, about half-way along the coast, we espied a
brig at anchor close on shore. Manned the boat and rowed about two
miles to the brig, found it was under the command of a notorious man
among the sandal-wood traders for many a dark deed of revenge and
unscrupulous retaliation upon the natives. At Nengone he shot three
in cold blood who swam off to his ship, because the people of the
place were said to be about to attempt to take his vessel. At
Mallicolo but lately I fear he killed not less than eight, though
here there was some scuffling and provocation. For the Nengone
affair he was tried for his life at Sydney, Captain Erskine and the
Bishop having much to do with his prosecution. He is now dealing
fairly (apparently) with these people, and is certainly on very
friendly terms with them. The Bishop has known him many years, and
baptized some years ago his only child, a son. We are glad to let
these men see that we are about in these seas, watching what they do;
and the Bishop said, "Mr. Patteson is come from England on purpose
to look after these islands," as much as to say, Now there will be a
regular visitation of them, and outrages committed on the natives
will probably be discovered.

'Well, on we rowed, half a mile to shore--such a lovely scene. A
bend in the coral reef made a beautiful boat harbour, and into it we
rowed. Clear as crystal was the water, bright as tropical sun at
2.30 P.M. could make it was the foliage on the shore. Numbers of
children and boys were playing in the water or running about on the
rocks and sands, and there were several men about, all of course
naked, and as they lead an amphibious life they find it very
convenient. They work little; breadfruit trees, cocoa-nut trees, and
bananas grow naturally, and the yam and taro cultivations are weeded
and tended by the women. They have nothing to do but eat, drink, and
sleep, and lie on the warm coral rock, and bathe in the surf.

'There was no shyness on the part of the children, dear little
fellows from six to ten clustering round me, unable to understand my
coat with pockets, and what my socks could be--I seemed to have two
or three skins. The men came up and soon shook hands, but did not
seem to know the custom. A Nengone man was ashore, and with him I
could talk a little. Soon I was walking on shore arm-in-arm with
him, stark naked, and he was asking me about Mrs. Nihill and her
child. A little boy of the island held the other hand, and so,
leaving the boat, we walked inland into the bush to see a native
village. Ten minutes' walk brought us to it--cottages all of bamboos
tied together with cocoa-nut fibre, thatched with leaves, a ridge-
pole and sloping roof on either side reaching to the ground. No
upright poles or side-walls; they were quite open at the two ends,
perhaps 20, 30, or even 40 feet long; the general appearance clean
and healthy. Their food was kept on raised stages as in New Zealand,
and they had plenty of earthenware pots and basins, some of good
shape, and all apparently strong and serviceable. Large wooden or
earthenware platters are used for stirring up and pounding the yams
with a heavy wooden pestle, and they have a peculiar way of scraping
the yam, on a wooden board roughened like a grater, into a pulp, and
then boiling it into a fine dough.

'They have plenty of pigs and dogs, which they eat, and some fowls.
Spears I saw none, but bows and arrows. I took a bow out of a man's
hand, and then an arrow, and fitted it to the string; he made signs
that he shot birds with it. Clubs they have, but as far as I saw
only used for killing pigs. There is a good deal of fighting on the
island, however. Recollect with reference to all these places, that
an island fifty or sixty miles long, one mass of forest with no path,
is not like an English county. It may take months to get an accurate
knowledge of one of them; we can only at present judge of the
particular spots and bays we touch at. But there is every indication
here of friendliness, of a gentle, soft disposition, and I hope we
shall take away some of the boys when we return. I never saw
children more thoroughly attractive in appearance and manner,--dear
little fellows, I longed to bring off some of them. You would have
liked to have seen them playing with me, laughing and jumping about.
These people don't look half so well when they have any clothes on,
they look shabby and gentish; but seeing them on shore, or just
coming out of a canoe, all glistening with water, and looking so
lithe and free, they look very pleasant to the eye. The colour
supplies the place of clothing. The chief and most of the men were
unfortunately absent at a great feast held a few miles off, but there
were several women and many children.

'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.'

Bellona likewise had a Maori-speaking population. There was no
passage through the reef, so the Bishop and Patteson took off their
coats, one took two hatchets and the other two adzes, and with a good
header, swam ashore. Walking up the beach, they found a place in the
bush with nine beautiful canoes, with nets, and large wooden hooks in
them, but at first no people; and they were leaving their presents in
the canoes when Patteson spied two men, and advanced to them while
the Bishop went back to fetch the goods. After a rubbing of noses
and a Maori greeting, the men were reassured, and eleven more came
up, one a chief with a spear in his hand. 'I had my straw hat
fastened by a ribbon, which my friend coveted, so I let him take it,
which he did by putting his adze (my gift) against it, close to my
ear, and cutting it, off--not the least occasion to be afraid of
them.' A characteristic comment, certainly! But there was no
foolhardiness. The Bishop was on the alert, and when presently he
saw his companion linger for a moment, a quick 'Come along,' was a
reminder that 'this was not the beach at Sidmouth.' The peculiar
quickness of eye--verily circumspect, though without the least
betrayal of alarm or want of confidence, which was learnt from the
need of being always as it were on guard, was soon learnt likewise by
Patteson, while the air of suspicion or fear was most carefully
avoided. The swim back to the boat was in water 'too warm, but
refreshing,' and ended with a dive under the boat for the pure
pleasure of the thing.

Then, as before arranged, Bauro was revisited on another part of the
coast, where Iri was ready with a welcome, but Diddimang appeared no
more. He had returned to native habits, and had made no attempt at
teaching, but the visits he had made to New Zealand were not lost,
for the Bishop had acquired a knowledge of the language, and it was
moreover established in the Bauro mind that a voyage in his ship was
safe and desirable. 'This part of Bauro was exceedingly beautiful:--

'Here were coral crags, the masses of forest trees, the creepers
literally hundreds of feet long, crawling along and hanging from the
cliffs, the cocoa-nut trees and bananas, palms, &c., the dark figures
on the edge of the rocks looking down upon us from among the trees,
the people assembling on the bright beach--coral dust as it may be
called, for it was worn as fine as white sand--cottages among the
trees, and a pond of fresh water close by, winding away among the
cliffs.'

Here a visit was paid to Iri's boathouse, which contained three
exquisite canoes, beautifully inlaid; then to his house, long, low,
and open at the ends, like those formerly described, but with low
wattled side walls. Along the ridge-pole were ranged twenty-seven
skulls, not yet blackened with smoke, and bones were scattered
outside, for a fight had recently taken place near at hand. 'In this
Golgotha,' the Bishop, using his little book of Bauro words, talked
to the people, and plainly told them that the Great God hated wars
and cruelty, and such ornaments were horrible in his sight. Iri took
it all in good part, and five boys willingly accepted the invitation
to New Zealand. One little fellow about eight years old had attached
himself to Coley, clinging about his waist with his arms, but he was
too young to be taken away. Iri came down to the beach, and waded up
to his waist in the water as the boat put off.

In the night Gera, or Guadalcanar, was reached, a fine mountainous
island, with a detached reef. Numerous canoes surrounded the vessel,
bringing yarns for barter. Fish-hooks were of no account; it was
small hatchets that were in request, and the Bauro boys could hold
some sort of converse with the people, though theirs was quite
another dialect. They were gaily decked out with armlets, frontlets,
bracelets, and girdles of shell, and almost all of them wore, not
only nose-rings, but plugs of wood or mother-of-pearl in the tip of
the nose. One man in particular had a shell eyelet-hole let into his
nose, into which he inserted his unicorn decoration. The Bishop
amused himself and Coley by saying, as he hung a fishhook on this
man's nose-hook, 'Naso suspendis adunco.' Others had six or eight
pieces of wood sticking out from either side of the nose, like a
cat's whiskers. Two young men were taken from hence, and more would
have gone, but it was not thought well to take married men.

The isle of Mara or Malanta had a very shy population, who seemed to
live inland, having probably been molested by the warlike Gera men.
It had been supposed that there was a second islet here, but the
'Southern Cross' boat's crew found that what had been taken for a
strait was only the mouth of a large river, where the casks were
filled.

The wondrous beauty of the scene, sea and river alike fringed with
the richest foliage, birds flying about (I saw a large blue bird, a
parrot, I suppose), fish jumping, the perfectly still water, the
mysterious smoke of a fire or two, the call of a man heard in the
bush, just enough of novelty to quicken me to the full enjoyment of
such a lovely bay as no English eyes save ours have ever seen.'

No communication with the native inhabitants was here accomplished,
but at four little flat, cocoanut-covered islets, named after Torres,
were the head-quarters of an English dealer in cocoa-nut oil. The
native race were Maori-speaking, but their intercourse with sailors
had given them a knowledge of the worst part of the English language,
and as usual it was mournfully plain how much harm our countrymen
instil.

The next group, sighted on the 17th of August, had already a
remarkable history, to which Patteson refers in his journal, with no
foreboding of the association those reefs and bays were to acquire
for him, and far more through him.

Alvaro de Mendana had, in 1567, gone forth from Peru on a voyage of
discovery in the Pacific, and had then found, and named, most of the
Solomon Isles. Grera and Bauro owed their names of Guadalcanar and
San Cristoval to him. In 1594, he obtained permission to found a
colony on San Cristoval, and set forth with his wife and four ships.
But the Bauro people were spared that grievous misfortune of a
Spanish settlement; Mendana missed his way, blundered into the
Marquesas first, and then came upon a cluster of islands, one large
and beautiful, two small, and one a volcano in full action.

He called the large island Santa Cruz, and fancied the natives of the
same race he had seen in Bauro, but they knew nothing of the language
he had learnt there, and though courteous at first, presently
discharged their arrows. However, he found a beautiful harbour on
the other side of the island, and a friendly and dignified old chief
called Malope, who in South Sea fashion exchanged names and presents
with him. Mendana and his wife Dona Ysabel seem to have wished to be
on good terms with the natives, and taught them to sign the cross,
and say amigos, and they proceeded to found their intended city, but
neither Mendana nor Malope could restrain their followers; there were
musket-shots on one side and arrow-shots on the other, and at last,
the chief Malope himself fell into the hands of some Spanish
soldiers, who murdered him. Mendana punished them with death; but
his own health was fast failing, he died in a few weeks, and his
widow deserted the intended city, and returned home with the
colonists, having probably bequeathed to the island a distrust of
white men.

All this was in Patteson's mind, as he shows by his journal, as the
lovely scenery of Santa Cruz rose on him. The people came out in
canoes with quantities of yams and taro, of which they knew the full
value; but the numbers were so large that no 'quiet work' could be
done, and there was little to be done but to admire their costume,
armlets, necklaces, plates of mother-of-pearl, but no nose ornaments.
They had strips of a kind of cloth, woven of reed, and elaborate
varieties of head-gear, some plastering their hair white with coral
lime, others yellow, others red; others had shaved half the head with
no better implement than a sharp shell, and others had produced two
lines of bristles, like hogs' manes, on a shaven crown. Their
decorations made a great sensation among the Solomon Islanders, who
made offers of exchange of necklaces, &c.

In the evening the schooner made for the volcano, about three miles
off. It was a magnificent sight--a perfect cone, the base of the
mountain and all except the actual cone being under water. The cone
was apparently about 2,000 feet high, clouds hanging about it near
the top, lurid and fiery, increasing the grandeur of the glow at the
summit. Every minute streams of fire, falling from the top or sides,
rushed down the mount, so that for a space of perhaps half a mile in
breadth the whole cone was always streaked, and sometimes covered
with burning-masses of stones, cinders, &c. Bumbling noises were
heard only a few times.

'About 7 to 9 A.M. we sailed quite round the island, and saw there
that the fiery appearance at night is not actually fire or flame, but
caused by hot burning stones and masses of scoria, &c., constantly
falling down the sides of the cone, which on the lee side are almost
perpendicular. On the weather side are cocoa-nut trees, and one
small house, but we could see no people. It was grand to see the
great stones leaping and bounding down the sides of the cone,
clearing 300 or 400 feet at a jump, and springing up many yards into
the air, finally plunging into the sea with a roar, and the splash of
the foam and steam combined.

This was on the 12th of August, and here is the ensuing note, how
full now of significance, which it would be faithless to term
melancholy:--'We then went on to Nukapu, an island completely
encircled by a coral reef. The natives soon came off in canoes, and
brought breadfruit and cocoa-nuts. They spoke a few words of Maori,
but wore their hair like the people of Santa Cruz, and resembled them
in the character of their ornaments and in their general appearance.
They had bows and clubs of the same kind, tapa stained with turmeric,
armlets, ear-rings and nose-rings of bone and tortoiseshell.'

Returning to Santa Cruz, a large supply of the produce was obtained
by barter, but the people were still in such noisy crowds that
nothing could be effected beyond these commercial transactions.

Tubua was the next ensuing island, a lovely spot within its
encircling ring, over which the Bishop and Patteson waded, and found
thirteen men on the beach. Patteson went up to the first, tied a bit
of red tape round his head, and made signs that he wanted a cocoa-nut
in exchange for a fish-hook. Plenty were forthcoming; but the
Bishop, to his companion's surprise, made a sudden sign to come away,
and when the boat was regained he said: 'I saw some young men running
through the bush with bows and arrows, and these young gentry have
not the sense to behave well like their parents.'

Vanikoro was the next stage. This too had its history, encircled as
it is with a complete reef of coral, in some parts double. In the
year 1785, two French vessels, which were commanded by Count La
Perouse, and named 'La Boussole' and 'L'Astrolabe,' had set forth
from Brest on a voyage of discovery in the Pacific. They made a most
discursive survey of that ocean, from Kamtschatka southwards, and at
the end of 1787 were at the Samoan Isles, then unconverted, and where
their two boats' crews were massacred, and the boats lost. The ships
came to Port Jackson, in Australia, to build fresh boats, left it in
February 1788, and were never heard of more. One or two attempts
were made to ascertain their fate, but none succeeded till, in 1826,
a sandal-wood trader named Dillon found in the possession of a
European, who had lived since 1813 in Ticopia, the silver guard of a
sword, and ascertained from him that the natives had several
articles, such as china, glass, and the handle of a silver fork,
which evidently came from a ship. He had been told that these
articles had been procured from another isle called Vanikoro, where
two large ships had been wrecked.

His intelligence led to the fitting out of a vessel, in which he was
sent to ascertain the fate of the Frenchmen, and by the help of the
man who had been so long in Ticopia, he was able to examine a
Vanikoran chief. It appeared that the two ships had run aground on
the parallel reefs. One had sunk at once, and the crew while
swimming out had been some of them eaten by the sharks, and others
killed by the natives; indeed, there were sixty European skulls in a
temple. The other vessel had drifted over the reef, and the crew
entrenched themselves on shore, while building another vessel. They
went out and foraged for themselves in the taro fields, but they made
no friends; they were ship-spirits, with noses two hands long before
their faces (their cocked hats). Articles were recovered that placed
the fact beyond a doubt, and which were recognised by one of the
expedition who had left it in Kamtschatka, the sole survivor. Of the
fate of the two-masted vessel built by the shipwrecked crew, nothing
was ever discovered.