it is to look at it; but as yet we have seen no beach; the rock runs right into the sea.  Such bustle and excitement on board! emigrants getting their things ready, carpenters making the old “Duke” look smart, sailors scrubbing, but no painting going on, to our extreme delight.  It is so calm, quite as smooth as a small lake; indeed there is less perceptible motion than I have felt on the Lake of Como.  No backs, no bones aching, though here I speak for others more than for myself, for the Bishop began his talk last night by saying, “One great point is decided, that you are a good sailor.  So far you are qualified for Melanesia."’

To this may be added that Patteson had been farther preparing for this work by a diligent study of the Maori language, and likewise of navigation; and what an instructor he had in the knowledge of the coasts may be gathered from the fact that an old sea captain living at Kohimarama sent a note to St. John’s College stating that he was sure that the Bishop had come, for he knew every vessel that had ever come into Auckland harbour, and was sure this barque had never been there before; yet she had come in the night through all the intricate passages, and was rounding the heads without a pilot on board.  He therefore concluded that the Bishop must be on board, as there was no other man that could have taken command of her at such a time, and brought her into that harbour.

The Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn went on shore as soon as possible; Patteson waited till the next day.  Indeed he wrote on July 5 that he was in no hurry to land, since he knew no one in the whole neighbourhood but Archdeacon Abraham.  Then he describes the aspect of Auckland from the sea:—­

’It looks much like a small sea-side town, but not so substantially built, nor does it convey the same idea of comfort and wealth; rude warehouses, &c., being mixed up with private houses on the beach.  The town already extends to a distance of perhaps half a mile on each side of this cove, on which the principal part of it is built.  Just in the centre of the cove stands the Wesleyan chapel.  On the rising ground on the east of the cove is the Roman Catholic chapel, and on the west side is St. Paul’s Church, an Early English stone building, looking really ecclesiastical and homelike.  The College, at a distance of about five miles from the town, on some higher ground, northwest of it, is reached from the harbour by a boat ascending a creek to within a mile of the buildings, so that we shall not go into the town at all when we land.  By water too will be our shortest, at all events our quickest way from the college to the town.