'On the west corner of this bay we determined to build. A small tide creek runs for a short way about S.S.E. from the extreme end of the western part of the beach, then turns early eastward, and meets a small stream coming down from the southern hill at its western extremity. This creek encloses a space extending along the whole width of the bay of about eighteen or twenty acres.
'At the east end stand three wooden cottages, occupied by the master, mate, and a married seaman of the "Southern Cross." At the west end stands the Melanesian school. Fences divide the whole space into three portions, whereof the western one forms our garden and orchard; and the others pasture for cows and working bullocks; small gardens being also fenced off for the three cottages. The fifty acres of flat land south of the creek we are now clearing and ploughing.
'The situation here is admirably adapted for our school. Now that we have a solid wall of the scoria from the volcanic island opposite, we have a complete shelter from the cold south wind. The cliff and hill to the west entirely shut off the wind from that quarter, and the north and east winds are always warm. The soil is very dry, and the beach composed exclusively of small "pipi" shells-small bivalves. So that by putting many cart-loads of these under our wooden floors, and around our buildings, we have so perfect a drainage that after heavy rain the soil is quite dry again in a few hours. It causes me no anxiety now, when I am for an hour away from my flock, to be thinking whether they are lying on the ground, forgetting that the hot sun overhead does not destroy the bad effect of a damp clay soil such as that at St. John's College.
'The buildings at present form three sides of a quadrangle, but the south side is only partly filled up. The large schoolroom, eighty feet long, with three sets of transepts, has been removed from the College, and put up again so as to form the east side of the quadrangle. This is of wood; so is the small wooden quadrangle which serves now for dormitories, and a part of which I occupy; my house consisting of three little rooms, together measuring seventeen feet by seven. These dormitories are the southern side of the quadrangle, but do not reach more than half-way from the east to the west side, room being left for another set of dormitories of equal size, when we want them and can afford them. The west side consists of a very nice set of stone buildings, including a large kitchen, store room, and room for putting things in daily and immediate use; and the hall, which is the northern part of the side of the quadrangle, is a really handsome room, with simple open roof and windows of a familiar collegiate appearance. These buildings are of the dark grey scoria, almost imperishable I suppose, and look very well. The hall is just long enough to take seven of us at the high table (so to speak), and thirty-four at the long table, stretching from the high table to the end of the room.
'At present this is used for school also, as the carpenters who are making all our fittings, shelves, are still in the large schoolroom. We take off the north end of the schoolroom, including one set of transepts for our temporary chapel. This part will be lined, i.e. boarded, neatly inside. The rest of the building is very rough, but it answers its purpose.
'In all the stone buildings, the rough stone is left inside just as it is outside. It does not look bad at all to my eye, and I doubt if I would have it lined if we had funds to pay for it.
'I hope eventually that stone buildings will take the place of the present wooden schoolroom and dormitories; but this ought to last many years. Here we live most happily and comfortably. The climate almost tropical in summer. The beautiful scenery of the harbour before our eyes, the smooth sea and clean dry beach within a stone's throw of my window. The lads and young men have their fishing, bathing, boating, and basking in the sun, which all day from sunrise to sunset beats right upon us; for the west cliff does not project more than a few yards to the north of us, and the eastern boundary is low and some way off. I see the little schooner at her moorings whenever I look off my book or my paper, and with an opera-glass can see the captain caulking the decks. All is under my eye; and the lads daily say, "College too cold; Kohimarama very good; all the same Bauro, Mota," as the speaker belongs to one or other of our fourteen islands represented.... The moment we heard of your gift, we said simultaneously, "Let it be given to this or to some specific and definite object." I think you will like to feel not only that the money came most opportunely, but that within the walls built with that money, many many hundreds, I trust, of these Melanesian islanders will be fed and taught, and trained up in the knowledge and fear of God....
'Your affectionate Cousin,
'J. C. PATTESON.'
Before the old year was out came the tidings of the death of good Miss Neill, the governess whom Patteson had so faithfully loved from early childhood, and whose years of suffering he had done his best to cheer. 'At rest at last.' In the same letter, in answer to some complaint from his sister of want of detail in the reports, he says: 'Am I trying to make my life commonplace? Well, really so it is more or less to me. Things go on in a kind of routine. Two voyages a year, five months in New Zealand, though certainly two-thirds of my flock fresh every year. I suppose it still sounds strange to you sometimes, and to others always, but they should try to think for themselves about our circumstances.
'And you know, Fan, I can't write for the world at large anecdotes of missionary life, and swell the number of the "Gems" and other trashy books. If people who care to know, would think of what their own intuition tells them of human nature, and history tells them of heathenism, they can make out some notion of real missionary work.
'The school is the real work. Teaching adults to read a strange tongue is hard work; I have little doubt but that the Bishop is right in saying they must be taught English; but it is so very difficult a language, not spelt a bit as pronounced; and their language is all vocalic and so easy to put into writing.
'But if you like I will scatter anecdotes about-of how the Bishop and his chaplain took headers hand in hand off the schooner and roundhouse; and how the Bishop got knocked over at Leper's Island by a big wave; and how I borrowed a canoe at Tariko and paddled out yams as fast as the Bishop brought them to our boat, this is rubbish.'
This letter is an instance of the reserve and reticence which Mr. Patteson felt so strongly with regard to his adventures and pupils. He could not endure stories of them to become, as it were, stock for exciting interest at home. There was something in his nature that shrank from publishing accounts of individual pupils as a breach of confidence, as much, or perhaps even more, than if they had been English people, likely to know what had been done. Moreover, instances had come to his knowledge in which harm had been done to both teachers and taught by their becoming aware that they were shown off to the public in print. Such things had happened even where they would have seemed not only unlikely, but impossible; and this rendered him particularly cautious in writing of his work, so that his reports were often dry, while he insisted strongly on his letters to his family being kept private.
The actual undertakings of the Mission did not exceed its resources, so that there was no need for those urgent appeals which call for sensation and incident to back them; and thus there sometimes seemed to the exterior world to be a lack of information about the Mission.