’I can hardly have quite the same control over lads brought to an island itself wholly uncivilised as I can have over them in New Zealand, but as a rule, Melanesians are very tractable.  Certainly I would sooner have my present school to manage, forty-five of all ages from nine to perhaps twenty-seven or eight, from twelve or thirteen islands, speaking at least eight languages, than half the number of English boys, up to all sorts of mischief....

’Thank you, dear uncle, for the Xavier; a little portable book is very nice for taking on board ship, and I dare say I may read some of his letters in sight of many a heathen island....

’Good-bye, my dear Uncle.

’Your affectionate and grateful nephew,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

‘Savages are all Fridays, if you know how to treat them’ is a saying of Patteson’s in one of his letters, and a true one.  In truth, there was no word that he so entirely repudiated as this of savage, and the courtesy and untutored dignity of many of his native friends fully justified his view, since it was sure to be called forth by his own conduct towards them.

The chiefs, having a great idea of their own importance, and being used to be treated like something sacred, and never opposed, were the most difficult people to deal with, and in the present voyage there was a time of great anxiety respecting a young chief named Aroana, from the great isle of Malanta.  He fell into an agony of nervous excitement lest he should never see his island again, an attack of temporary insanity came on, and he was so strong that Mr. Patteson could not hold him down without the help of the Bishop and another, and it was necessary to tie him down, as he attempted to injure himself.  He soon recovered, and the cooler latitudes had a beneficial effect on him, but there was reason to fear that in Malanta the restraint might be regarded as an outrage on the person of a chief.

The voyage safely ended on the night of the 16th of November.  Here is part of a letter to Mr. Edward Coleridge, written immediately after reading the letters that had been waiting in Auckland:—­

’My father writes:—­“My tutor says that there must be a Melanesian Bishop soon, and that you will be the man,” a sentence which amused me not a little.

’The plan is that the Bishop should gradually take more and more time for the islands, as he transfers to the General Synod all deeds, documents, everything for which he was corporation sole, and as he passes over to various other Bishops portions of New Zealand.  Finally, retaining only the north part of the northern island, to take the Melanesian Bishopric.

’I urged this plan upon him very strongly one day, when somewhere about lat. 12° S. (I fancy) he pressed me to talk freely about the matter.  I said:  “One condition only I think should be present to your mind, viz., that you must not give up the native population in New Zealand,” and to this he assented.