'Close to his house is the magnificent kiala, or boat house, about 180 feet long, 42 high, and about as many feet broad, a really grand, imposing place. Here Brooke, in surplice, with his little band, had his Sunday services, singing hymns, and chanting Psalms, in parts, in the presence of from 150 to 300, once nearly 400 people, to whom he spoke of course, usually twice, making two sermonets.
'The island is unlike any other; much more open, much less bush, but it is not coral crag that crops out, but almost bare reddish rock, with but little soil on it, and the population, which is large, finds it hard to procure food.
'Three brothers, Takua, Savai, and Dikea, are the principal men. Local chiefs exercise some small authority in each village. Anudha, or Aunta, is properly the name of a small island, for there is no one great mainland, but many islands separated by very narrow salt-water creeks and rivers, along which a skiff may be sculled.
'Brooke has been over every part of it. His only difficulties arose from jealousy on the part of Takua and Savai, who, living at Mboli, were very wroth at his not being their tame Pakeha, at his asserting his independence, his motive in coming to teach all, and make known to all alike a common message. Especially they were indignant at his making up small parties of boys from different parts of the island, as they of course wanted to monopolise him, and through him the trade. He has evidently been firm and friendly too, keeping his temper, yet speaking out very plainly. The result, as far as bringing boys goes, is that we have now thirteen on board, including Dudley and Richard, from six different parts of the island. But so vexed was Takua, that he would not fulfil his promise of sending his two little girls.
'The fortnight spent in the Solomon Islands has been very fine; winds very light, and very little rain. We have at length got Stephen Taroniara's child, a little girl of about seven years old, Paraitaku, from the old grandmother and aunts. So, thank God, she will be brought up as a Christian child. She is a dear little thing.
'This work of Mr. Atkin and Mr. Brooke in the easterly and more north-westerly parts of the Solomon Islands respectively, is the nearest approach that has yet been made to regular missionary operations there. Our short visits in the "Southern Cross," or my short three to ten days' visits on shore are all useful as preparing the way for something more. But it is the quiet, lengthened staying for some months among these islanders that gives opportunities for knowing them and their ways. They do everything with endless talk and discussion about it; and it is only by living with, and moving about constantly among them, that any hold can be gained over them. I think that the Mission is now in a more hopeful state than ever before in these islands.
'Our parties of scholars are large. They trust quite little fellows with us, and for any length of time. True, these little fellows cannot exercise any influence for years to come; but if we take young men or lads of sixteen or eighteen years old, it needs as many years to qualify them (with heathen habits to be unlearned, and with the quickness of apprehension of new teaching already gone) for being useful among their people as would suffice for the arrival of these young children at mature age.'
Three Tikopian giants had made a visit at Mota in the course of this year, attracted by the fame of the hospitality and fertility of the place. George Sarawia had got on well with them, and tried to keep them to meet the Bishop, but one of them fell sick, and the others took him away. This was hailed as a possible opening to those two curious isles, Oanuta and Tikopia, in so far as the 'Southern Cross' work was concerned. The Bishop continues, to his former Primate:-
'On the whole, things seem to be going on favourably. The Banks Islanders are very shy now of the vessels sent to carry off men to Fiji or Queensland. They will find their way into the Solomon Islands soon. One, indeed, a cutter, has taken about twenty men from Ulava. They were all kept under hatches. We warn the people wherever we go.
'The pressing question now is how to supply our young men and women, married Christian couples, with proper occupations to prevent their acquiescing in an indolent, useless, selfish life.
'When their "education is finished," they have no profession, no need to work to obtain a livelihood for themselves, wives, and children. They can't all be clergymen, nor all even teachers in such a sense as to make it a calling and occupation.
'Some wants they have-houses fit for persons who like reading and writing, a table, a bench, a window becomes necessary. Coral lime houses would be good for them. They make and wear light clothing, they wash and cook on new principles, but these wants are soon supplied. Only a practical sense of the duty of helping others to know what they have been taught will keep them from idleness and its consequences. And how few of us, with no other safeguard against idleness, would be other than idle!
'Some, I think, may be helped by being associated with us, and with their friends of the Solomon Isles, New Hebrides, in spending some months on shore, where they would soon acquire a fair knowledge of the language, and might be of great use to less advanced friends. This would be a real work for them. Just as Mission work is the safeguard of the settled Church, so it must be the safeguard of these young native Churches.
'No doubt the Missionary spirit infused into the Samoan and Karotongan Churches kept them living and fruitful. I am trying to think upon these points.
'If the contrast be too violent between the Mission station with its daily occupations and the island life, it becomes very difficult for the natives to perpetuate the habits of the one amidst the circumstances of the other.
'The habits acquired at Norfolk Island ought to be capable of being easily transferred to the conditions of the Melanesian isles.
'They ought, I think, to wear (in the hot summer and on week days) light loose clothing, which could be worn at home; or clothing of the same shape and fit (though perhaps of warm materials) might be worn.
'The circumstances of the two places must be different, but we must minimise the difference as much as possible.
'I often think of the steady-going English family, with regular family prayers, and attendance twice at Church on Sunday, and the same people spending two months on the Continent. No opportunity is made for family prayers before the table d'hôte breakfast; and at least one part of the Sunday is spent in the Roman Catholic Cathedral, or in a different way from the home use. And if this be so with good respectable folk among ourselves, what must be the effect of altered circumstances on our Melanesians?
'It is not easy to keep up the devotional life on shore at home, or in the islands, or on board ship with the same regularity. And where the convert must be more dependent than we ought to be on external opportunities, the difficulty is increased. So if the alteration be as little as possible, we gain something, we make it easier to our scholars to perpetuate uninterruptedly the Norfolk Island life.
'To live with them and try to show them how, on their island, to keep up the religious life unchanged amidst the changed outward circumstances is a good way, but then we can't live among them very long, and our example is so often faulty.
'Curiously do these practical difficulties make us realise that there may really be some benefit in artificial wants; and that probably the most favourable situation for the development of the human character is a climate where the necessaries of life are just sufficiently difficult of production to require steady industry, and yet that nature should not be so rigorous as to make living so hard a matter as to occupy the whole attention, and dwarf the mental faculties.'
How remarkable, is the date of the following thoughts, almost like a foreboding:-
'September 19th, 10 A.M. (to the sisters).-We are drawing near Santa Cruz, about 100 miles off. How my mind is filled with hopes, not unmingled with anxiety. It is more than eleven years since we sought to make an opening here, and as yet we have no scholar. Last year, I went ashore at a large village called Taive, about seven miles from the scene of our disaster. Many canoes came to us from that spot, and we stood in quite close in the vessel, so that people swam off to us.