Life of John Coleridge Patteson

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  'I had slept on shore about three miles up the bay among a number of natives, twenty-five or twenty-six in the same room with me, on the previous evening: at least, I lay down in my things, which, by the bye, were drenched through with salt and rain water. They said I was the first white person that had been ashore there. They treated me very well. How in the face of all this could I run the risk of letting them think I was unwilling to trust them? So I think still that I was right in all but one thing. I ought to have ascertained better the nature of the current and the bottom of the harbour, to see if there was good holding ground. But it is easier to do those things in an English port than in the sight of a number of natives, and especially when there is but one person able to communicate with the said natives. If I went off in the boat sounding, who was to look after the schooner? If I stayed on board, who was to explain to the natives what was being done in the boat? Besides, we have but five men on board, including the master and mate, and one of them was disabled by a bad hand, so that if I had manned the boat, I should have left only three able-bodied men on board-it was a puzzle, you see, dear Uncle. Now I have entered into this long defence lest any of you dear ones should think me rash. Indeed, I don't want to run any risks at all. But there was no risk here, as I supposed, and had we chosen to go round on the other tack we should have known nothing of a risk now. As it was, we did run a great hazard of grounding on the reef, and therefore, Laus Deo.

  'Oh! dear little Pena, if you had only seen the village which, as yet, I alone of white people have been allowed to see-the great tall cocoa-nuts, so tall and slender at the top, that I was almost afraid when a boy was sent up to gather some nuts for me-the cottages of bamboo and cocoa-nut leaves-the great forest trees, the parrots flying about among the branches-the crowd of men and children and a few women all looking at, and some talking to the strange chief, "who had spoken the truth and brought their kinsman as he promised,"-the sea in the harbour shut off by small islets and looking like a beautiful lake with high wooded and steep banks-the pretty canoes on the beach, and the great state canoe lying at its stone anchor about fifty yards off, about fifty feet long, and inlaid throughout with mother-of-pearl, the spears leaning against the houses-men stalking about with a kind of club (the great chief Puruhanua gave me his);-I think your little head would have been almost turned crazy....

  'June 4th, Auckland.-We reached harbour a week ago in a violent squall of wind and rain at 8.45 P.M. Anxious night after the anchor was dropped, lest the vessel should drag. Nine days coming from Norfolk Island, very heavy weather-no accident, but jib-boom pitched away while lying to in a south-easter....

  'Your loving nephew,

  'J. C. P.'

  The Rev. Benjamin Thornton Dudley, for several years a most valuable helper in the work, both at home and abroad, gives the following account of his own share in it, and his recollections of that first year:-

  'The first time I ever saw Mr. Patteson was in the beginning of 1856, when you (this is a letter to Mrs. Selwyn) all visited Lyttelton in the newly arrived "Southern Cross." That indescribable charm of manner, calculated at once to take all hearts by storm, was not perhaps as fully developed in him then as afterwards, and my experience was then comparatively limited, yet his words in the sermon he preached on behalf of the Melanesian Mission (a kind of historical review of the growth and spread of the Gospel), although coming after the wonderful sermon of the Bishop in the morning, made a deep impression on several of us, myself among the number.

  'You came to Lyttelton at the end of 1856 again, this time without him, and the Bishop brought me up to St. John's College, and placed me under him there. I remember at first how puzzled I felt as to what my position was, and what I was expected to do. Not a single direction was given me by Mr. Patteson, nor did he invite me to take a class in the comparatively small Melanesian school. Gradually it dawned upon me that I was purposely left there, and that I was expected to offer myself for anything I could do. When I offered myself I was allowed to assist in this and that, until at length I fell into my regular place. Although the treatment I received in this respect puzzled me, I felt his great kindness from the first. How bright he was in those days, and how overflowing with spirits when among the Melanesians. What fun there used to be of a morning, when he would come and hunt the lazy ones out of bed, drive them down to the bath house, and there assist their ablutions with a few basins of water thrown at them; and what an amount of quiet "chaff" used to go on at breakfast time about it as we sat with them in the great hall, without any of those restraints of the "high table" which were introduced at dinner.

  'During the first voyage made that year to return our Melanesian party, I think Mr. Patteson was feeling very much out of sorts. I do not remember any time during the years in which I was permitted to see so much of him when he took things so easily. He spoke of himself as lazy, and I confess I used to wonder somewhat how it was that he retired so completely into the cabin, and did apparently so little in the way of study. He read the "Heir of Redclyffe," and other books of light reading in that voyage. I understood better afterwards what, raw youth as I was at the time, puzzled me in one for whom I was already beginning to entertain a feeling different from any previously experienced. That seems to me now to have been quite a necessary pause in his life after he had with wholeheartedness and full intention given himself to his work, but before he had fully faced all its requirements and had learnt to map out his whole time with separate toil.'

  So concluded what may be called the first term of Coley Patteson's tutorship of his island boys. His work is perhaps best summed up in this sentence in a letter to me from Mrs. Abraham: 'Mr. Patteson's love for them, and his facility in communicating with them in their own tongue, make his dealing with the present set much more intimate and effective than it has ever been before, and their affections towards him are drawn out in a lively manner.'

  CHAPTER VIII. ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE AND LIFU. 1857-1859.

  It seems to me that the years between 1856 and 1861 were the very brightest of Coleridge Patteson's life. He had left all for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, and was reaping the blessing in its freshness. His struggles with his defects had been successful, the more so because he was so full of occupation that the old besetting trouble, self-contemplation, had been expelled for lack of opportunity; and he had become far more simple, since humility was ceasing to be a conscious effort.

  There is a light-heartedness about his letters like that of the old Eton times. Something might have been owing to the impulse of health, which was due to the tropical heat. Most probably this heat was what exhausted his constitution so early, but at first it was a delightful stimulus, and gave him exemption from all those discomforts with which cold had affected him at home. This exhilaration bore him over the many trials of close contact with uncivilised human nature so completely that his friends never even guessed at his natural fastidiousness. That which might have been selfish in this fastidiousness was conquered, though the refinement remained. Even to the last, in his most solitary hours, this personal neatness never relaxed, but the victory over disgust was a real triumph over self, which no doubt was an element of happiness.

  While the Bishop continued to go on the voyages with him, he had companionship, guidance, and comparatively no responsibility, while his success, that supreme joy, was wonderfully unalloyed, and he felt his own especial gifts coming constantly into play. His love for his scholars was one continual well of delight, and really seemed to be an absolute gift, enabling him to win them over, and compensating for what he had left, even while he did not cease to love his home with deep tenderness.

  Another pair of New Zealand friends had to be absent for a time. Archdeacon Abraham's arm was so severely injured by an accident with a horse, that the effects were far more serious than those of a common fracture. The disaster took place in Patteson's presence. 'I shall never forget,' writes his friend, 'his gentleness and consideration as he first laid me down in a room and then went to
tell my wife.'

  It was found necessary to have recourse to English advice; the Archdeacon and Mrs. Abraham went home, and were never again residents at Auckland.

  A letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge was written in the interval between the voyages:-

  'Auckland: June 12, 1857.

  'My dear Uncle,-You will not give me credit for being a good correspondent, I fear; but the truth is that I seldom find time to do more than write long chatty letters to my dear father and sisters, occasionally to Thorverton, and to Miss Neill and one or two others to cheer them in their sickness and weariness. Any news from afar may be a real relaxation.

  'For myself I need only say that I find these dear people most attractive and winning, that it is no effort to love them, that they display all natural gifts in a remarkable way-good temper, affection, gentleness, obedience, gratitude, occasionally real self-restraint. Dear Hirika's last words to me at San Cristoval were, "Oh, I do love you so," and his conduct showed it. He is a bright handsome lad, clever but inaccurate, of most sweet disposition. In matters of personal cleanliness, healthy appearance, the change in seven months was that of a lad wholly savage becoming neat, tidy in dress, and of gentlemanly appearance. In some ways he was my pet of the whole party, though I have equally bright hopes of Grariri, a sturdy, honest fellow with the best temper I almost ever found among lads of sixteen anywhere, and Kerearua is the most painstaking fellow of the lot; and a boy whose distinguishing features it would be hard to describe; but he may be summed up as a very good boy, and certainly a most loveable one. Sumaro and Kimarua older and less interesting.

  'I printed short catechisms, a translation of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, General Confession, two or three other of the Common Prayer prayers, and one or two short missionary prayers in the dialect of both islands; but I can only speak at all fluently the language of San Cristoval.

  'Of the Nengone people I could say much more. The two young women (married) and the two young unmarried men had been under Mr. Nihill's instruction two or three years, baptized, and were regular communicants while at the College. Simeona was baptized on the same day as his infant son, after he had been with us five months. He and the other four were confirmed at the College chapel, and he afterwards received the Holy Communion with the rest.

  'Kowine, a lad of seventeen, is not baptized, though well instructed. We were not wholly satisfied about him. Of the knowledge of them all I can speak with the utmost confidence. They know more a great deal than most candidates for confirmation in a well-regulated English parish. It was delightful to work with them. We wrote Bible history, which has reached about fifty sheets in MS. in small handwriting, bringing the history to the time of Joshua; very many questions and answers, and translated ninety pages of the Prayer Book, including Services for Infant and Adult Baptism, Catechism, Burial Service,

  'It is most interesting work, though not easy, and much of it will no doubt be altered when we come to know the language thoroughly well. This island of Nengone (called also Maro and Britannia Island) contains about 6,500 inhabitants, of whom some profess Christianity, while the remainder are still fighting and eating one another, though accessible to white people.

  'We hope to have time to see something of the heathen population, though the London Mission Society having re-occupied the island, we do not regularly visit it with the intention of establishing ourselves.... The language is confined to that island. I call it language, not dialect, for it is, I believe, really distinct from any others we have or have heard of, very soft, like Italian, and capable of expressing accurately minute shades of meaning. Causative forms, remind us of the oriental structure, one peculiarity (that of the chief's dialect, or almost language, running parallel to that of common life) I think I have before mentioned.

  'In about a month I suppose we shall be off again for three or four months, and we long to get hold of pupils from the Banks Archipelago, Santa Cruz, Espiritu Santo, in which no ground is broken at present. We visited them last year, but did not get any pupils; lovely islands, very populous, and the natives very bright, intelligent- looking. But how I long to see again some of my own dear boys, I do so think of them! It may be that two or three of them may come again to us, and then we may perhaps hope that they may learn enough to be really useful to their own people.... Dear uncle, I should indeed rejoice much to see my dear, dear father and sisters and Jem and all of you if it came in the way of one's business, but I think, so long as I am well, that the peculiar nature of this work must require the constant presence of one personally known to, and not only officially connected with, the natives. While I feel very strongly that in many ways intercourse occasionally resumed with the home clergy must be very useful to us, yet if you can understand that there is no one to take one's place, you see how very unlikely it must be that I can move from this hemisphere. I say "if you can understand," for it does seem sad that one should really be in such a position that one's presence should be of any consequence; but, till it please God that the Bishop shall receive other men for this Mission, there is no other teacher for these lads, and so we must rub on and do the best we can. Of course I should be most thankful, most happy if, during his lifetime, I once more found myself at home, but I don't think much nor speculate about it, and I am very happy, as I am well and hearty. You won't suspect me of any lessening of strong affection for all that savours of home. I think that I know every face in Alfington and in Feniton, and very many in Ottery as of old; I believe I think of all with increasing affection, but while I wonder at it, I must also confess that I can and do live happy day after day without enjoying the sight of those dear faces.

  'Always your affectionate and grateful nephew,

  'J. C. PATTESON.'

  As soon as the 'Southern Cross' had carried Bishop Harper back to Lyttelton, the Melanesian voyage was recommenced, this time with a valuable assistant in Mr. Benjamin Dudley. Mrs. Selwyn was again dropped at Norfolk Island, and five young Pitcairners were taken on board to serve as a boat's crew, and also to receive instruction.

  This was a more extensive voyage than the first, as more time could be spent on it, but there is less full description, as there was less time for writing; and besides, these coral islands are much alike. Futuma was the first new island visited:-

  'The canoes did not venture to come off to us, so we went ashore in the boat, Bishop and I wading ankle-deep to the beach. Forty or fifty natives under a deep overhanging rock, crouching around a fire, plenty of lads and boys, no women. Some Tanna men in the group, with their faces painted red and black, hair (as you know) elaborately frizzled and dressed with coral lime. The Futuma people speak a different language from those of Anaiteum, and the Tanna people speak a third (having, moreover, four dialects of their own). These three islands are all in sight of each other. Tanna has an active volcano, now smoking away, and is like a hot-bed, wonderfully fertile. People estimate its population at 10,000, though it is not very large,- about thirty miles long. At Futuma, the process by which these coral islands have been upheaved is well seen. The volcanic rocks are lying under the coral, which has been gradually thrust upwards by them. As the coral emerged, the animal went on building under water, continually working lower and lower down upon and over the volcanic formation, as this heaved in its upward course the coral formation out of the sea.'

  Erromango was occupied by the Scottish Mission, and Mr. Gordon was then living there in peace and apparent security, when a visit was paid to him, and Patteson gathered some leaves in Dillon's Bay, the spot where John Williams met his death sixteen years before, not, as now was understood, because he was personally disliked, but because he was unconsciously interfering with a solemnity that was going on upon the beach.

  At Fate Isle, the people were said to be among the wildest in those seas. When the 'Royal Sovereign' was wrecked, they had killed the whole crew, nineteen in number, eaten ten at once, and sent the other nine as presents to their friends. Very few appeared, but there was a good 'opening' exchange of prese
nts.

  A great number of small islets lie around Fate, forming part of the cluster of the New Hebrides, The Bishop had been at most of them before, and with a boat's crew of three Pitcairners and one English sailor, starting early and spending all day in the boat, he and Patteson touched at eleven in three days, and established the first steps to communication by obtaining 127 names of persons present, and making gifts. These little volcanic coral isles were all much alike, and nothing remarkable occurred but the obtaining two lads from Mai, named Petere and Laure, for a ten months' visit. Poor fellows, they were very sea-sick at first, and begged to go home again, but soon became very happy, and this connection with Petere had important consequences in the end. These lads spoke a language approaching Maori, whereas the Fate tongue prevailed in the other isles.

  At Mallicolo, on August 20, a horrible sight presented itself to the eyes of the two explorers when they walked inland with about eighteen most obliging and courteous natives-an open space with four hollowed trunks of trees surrounding two stones, the trees carved into the shape of grotesque human heads, and among them, a sort of temple, made of sloping bamboos and pandanus leaves meeting at the top, from whence hung a dead man, with his face painted in stripes of red and yellow, procured, it was thought, from the pollen of flowers. There was not enough comprehension of the language to make out the meaning of all this.