Meantime the little estate was brought into order.  A pleasant day of landscape-gardening was devoted to clearing gaps to let in the lovely views from the station; and a piece of ground was dug and planted with pine-apples, vines, oranges, and cotton, also a choicer species of banana than the indigenous one.  Bread-fruit was so plentiful that breakfast was provided by sending a boy up a tree to bring down four or five fruits, which were laid in the ashes, and cooked at once; and as to banana leaves ’we think nothing of cutting one down, four feet long and twenty inches wide, of a bright pale green, just to wrap up a cooked yam or two.’

The first week in July, with Wadrokala, Mark, and two Malanta men, Mr. Patteson set forth in the boat that had been left with him, for an expedition among the other islands, beginning with Saddle Island, or Valua, which was the proper name.

The day after leaving Eowa, the weather changed; and as on these perilous coasts there was no possibility of landing, two days and the intervening night had to be spent in the open four-oared boat, riding to a grapnel!

Very glad they were to get into Port Patteson, and to land in the wet, ‘as it can rain in the tropics.’  The nearest village, however, was empty, everybody being gone to the burial wake of the wife of a chief, and there was no fire to cook the yams, everything dreary and deserted, but a short walk brought the wet and tired party to the next village, where they were made welcome to the common house; and after, supping on yams and chocolate, spent a good night, and found the sea smooth the next day for a return to head-quarters.

These first weeks at Mota were very happy, but after that the strain began to tell.  Mr. Patteson had been worn with anxiety for his father, and no doubt with awe in the contemplation of his coming Episcopate, and was not in a strong state of health when he left Kohimarama, and the lack of animal food, the too sparing supply of wine, and the bare board bed told upon him.  On the 24th of July he wrote in a letter to his Uncle Edward:—­

’I have lost six days:  a small tumour formed inside the ear about two inches from the outer ear, and the pain has been very considerable, and the annoyance great.  Last night I slept for the first time for five nights, and I have been so weary with sleeplessness that I have been quite idle.  The mischief is passing away now.  That ear is quite deaf; it made me think so of dear Father and Joan with their constant trial.  I don’t see any results from our residence here; and why should I look for them?  It is enough that the people are hearing, some of them talking, and a few thinking about what they hear.  All in God’s own time!’