Kennell Island, where she touched on the 27th, proved to be inhabited by Maoris. One man, who swam alone to the vessel, offered the salutation of rubbing noses, New Zealand fashion, and converse could be held in that language. Two more joined him, and spent the night on board in singing a kaka or song of love for their visitors. Next day the island was visited. 'Oh the beauty of the deep clefts in the coral reef, lined with coral, purple, blue, scarlet, green, and white! the little blue fishes, the bright blue starfish, the little land-crabs walking away with other people's shells. But nothing of this can be seen by you; the coral loses its colour, and who can show you the bright line of surf breaking the clear blue of this truly Pacific Ocean, and the tropical sun piercing through masses of foliage which nothing less dazzling could penetrate. Our three friends, with two more men, their wives and children, form the whole population of the south end of the island at all events, perhaps twenty in all. I trod upon and broke flowering-branches of coral that you would have wondered at.'
Bellona likewise had a Maori-speaking population. There was no passage through the reef, so the Bishop and Patteson took off their coats, one took two hatchets and the other two adzes, and with a good header, swam ashore. Walking up the beach, they found a place in the bush with nine beautiful canoes, with nets, and large wooden hooks in them, but at first no people; and they were leaving their presents in the canoes when Patteson spied two men, and advanced to them while the Bishop went back to fetch the goods. After a rubbing of noses and a Maori greeting, the men were reassured, and eleven more came up, one a chief with a spear in his hand. 'I had my straw hat fastened by a ribbon, which my friend coveted, so I let him take it, which he did by putting his adze (my gift) against it, close to my ear, and cutting it, off—not the least occasion to be afraid of them.' A characteristic comment, certainly! But there was no foolhardiness. The Bishop was on the alert, and when presently he saw his companion linger for a moment, a quick 'Come along,' was a reminder that 'this was not the beach at Sidmouth.' The peculiar quickness of eye—verily circumspect, though without the least betrayal of alarm or want of confidence, which was learnt from the need of being always as it were on guard, was soon learnt likewise by Patteson, while the air of suspicion or fear was most carefully avoided. The swim back to the boat was in water 'too warm, but refreshing,' and ended with a dive under the boat for the pure pleasure of the thing.
Then, as before arranged, Bauro was revisited on another part of the coast, where Iri was ready with a welcome, but Diddimang appeared no more. He had returned to native habits, and had made no attempt at teaching, but the visits he had made to New Zealand were not lost, for the Bishop had acquired a knowledge of the language, and it was moreover established in the Bauro mind that a voyage in his ship was safe and desirable. 'This part of Bauro was exceedingly beautiful:—
'Here were coral crags, the masses of forest trees, the creepers literally hundreds of feet long, crawling along and hanging from the cliffs, the cocoa-nut trees and bananas, palms, &c., the dark figures on the edge of the rocks looking down upon us from among the trees, the people assembling on the bright beach—coral dust as it may be called, for it was worn as fine as white sand—cottages among the trees, and a pond of fresh water close by, winding away among the cliffs.'
Here a visit was paid to Iri's boathouse, which contained three exquisite canoes, beautifully inlaid; then to his house, long, low, and open at the ends, like those formerly described, but with low wattled side walls. Along the ridge-pole were ranged twenty-seven skulls, not yet blackened with smoke, and bones were scattered outside, for a fight had recently taken place near at hand. 'In this Golgotha,' the Bishop, using his little book of Bauro words, talked to the people, and plainly told them that the Great God hated wars and cruelty, and such ornaments were horrible in his sight. Iri took it all in good part, and five boys willingly accepted the invitation to New Zealand. One little fellow about eight years old had attached himself to Coley, clinging about his waist with his arms, but he was too young to be taken away. Iri came down to the beach, and waded up to his waist in the water as the boat put off.
In the night Gera, or Guadalcanar, was reached, a fine mountainous island, with a detached reef. Numerous canoes surrounded the vessel, bringing yarns for barter. Fish-hooks were of no account; it was small hatchets that were in request, and the Bauro boys could hold some sort of converse with the people, though theirs was quite another dialect. They were gaily decked out with armlets, frontlets, bracelets, and girdles of shell, and almost all of them wore, not only nose-rings, but plugs of wood or mother-of-pearl in the tip of the nose. One man in particular had a shell eyelet-hole let into his nose, into which he inserted his unicorn decoration. The Bishop amused himself and Coley by saying, as he hung a fishhook on this man's nose-hook, 'Naso suspendis adunco.' Others had six or eight pieces of wood sticking out from either side of the nose, like a cat's whiskers. Two young men were taken from hence, and more would have gone, but it was not thought well to take married men.
The isle of Mara or Malanta had a very shy population, who seemed to live inland, having probably been molested by the warlike Gera men. It had been supposed that there was a second islet here, but the 'Southern Cross' boat's crew found that what had been taken for a strait was only the mouth of a large river, where the casks were filled.
The wondrous beauty of the scene, sea and river alike fringed with the richest foliage, birds flying about (I saw a large blue bird, a parrot, I suppose), fish jumping, the perfectly still water, the mysterious smoke of a fire or two, the call of a man heard in the bush, just enough of novelty to quicken me to the full enjoyment of such a lovely bay as no English eyes save ours have ever seen.'
No communication with the native inhabitants was here accomplished, but at four little flat, cocoanut-covered islets, named after Torres, were the head-quarters of an English dealer in cocoa-nut oil. The native race were Maori-speaking, but their intercourse with sailors had given them a knowledge of the worst part of the English language, and as usual it was mournfully plain how much harm our countrymen instil.
The next group, sighted on the 17th of August, had already a remarkable history, to which Patteson refers in his journal, with no foreboding of the association those reefs and bays were to acquire for him, and far more through him.