John Milner

“ Several of us landed, and after inspecting their curious images in the village near the landing-place, started off into the interior along a native track, but were with difficulty allowed to pass a chief who was coming down attended by two of his harem. However, we embarked without an accident. Shortly afterwards the Bishop of New Zealand put in here, and landed with his chronometer to get a set of sights. The natives could not understand what he was after, and drove him into the sea, his lordship having to swim for his life, and spoiling his chronometer. ”

“ For instance, the people of Aneiteum believe that their own particular island was fished up out of the ocean by one of their deities, who made a man and woman, from whom they were descended, and that in consequence of the growing wickedness of the people in after ages, a flood came and drowned all except a man and his wife, who were saved in a canoe. ”

“ The present unhappy war, confined entirely to the, western side of the North Island, will soon be brought to a close, and would never have commenced had we ourselves been wise.
A few days’ sail with a fair wind soon enabled us to cast anchor off Aneiteum, the southernmost of the New Hebrides. Here we found a sandal-wood establishment conducted by a Captain Padden—the same adventurer who was recently obliged to escape from New Caledonia in an open boat, where he seems to have taken part in an attempt to excite the natives against the French. ”

“ Since that time Bishop Patteson has taken the “oversight” of all these islands to the northward of New Zealand, and is succeeding admirably.
On our return to the ship off Kororarika, we found everything ready for a start, but before shifting the scene to the New Hebrides, we must say a word or two about New Zealand in general, every port of which we have visited, except Otago. To our readers one and all we say, “If you hear anything said against any of the various settlements in this most magnificent country, don’t believe a word of it.” There is no climate in the world like it ”

“ Our readers need not be detained by any details of our voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and thence to Sydney. They shall be transported at once (metaphorically, of course) to the Bay of Islands, in New Zealand—to the lovely anchorage off the town of Kororarika, which had been the scene of some fierce fighting with the natives some years before. ”

“ He became one of the Bishop’s most useful pioneers, and I hope has never regretted the step he took in resenting his brother’s beating.
A few words respecting the fauna, &c., of the islands, as well as the dress, manners, and customs of the natives, will conclude this chapter.
In New Zealand and the other islands referred to, there is not a single venomous reptile of any kind whatever, the only indigenous animal being a small Kangaroo rat. The famous Aracauria—the Kauri of New Zealand—we found in New Caledonia and Vanikolo. ”

“ They grow yams, cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, bananas, taro, bread-fruit, pumpkins, melons, and even here and there Indian wheat.
In the New Hebrides the natives worship oblong stones, from six to eighteen inches in length, in each of which they suppose a divinity, or demon, resides, which they call a Natmas. There is a chip off one end of the stone by which the Natmas effects an entrance. The chief of the tribe is the priest, whose duty it is to propitiate the Natmas, who is of course a malignant being. ”

“ In Fati, the women wear a broad belt of matting, made from the inner rind of some tree, with some little attempt at ornament in the pattern; but they have besides a most curious tail-like appendage behind, which has a very odd appearance when seen as they are scudding away from the sight of a stranger. The women here have their hair cropped quite close—the men dress theirs in all sorts of fantastic shapes, and wear it long and frizzy. ”

“ His friends and tribesmen retaliate on the first white man they meet, no matter whether the guilty individual or not; and woe betide the unhappy voyager who is the first to land here after an outrage has been committed by some rascally sandal-wood trader, or beche-de-mer collector. I never heard what became of Captain Padden, but it is due to him to say, that he was an honest, upright trader, and highly esteemed by the natives of this group.
On the 27th of August we anchored off Erromango, the island where John Williams, the missionary, was murdered in 1839. ”

“ Her crew were all murdered in retaliation for an outrage committed by a sandal-wood trader a short time before, who had shot a chief, named Gaskin, whom we had found very civil and attentive. It is the reckless conduct of these unprincipled traders that renders cruising amongst this group of islands so very dangerous. A native offends them in some way or other, and their deliberately shoot him. ”

“ Two other missionaries of the London Society were stationed here in 1842, but were obliged to leave in consequence of an epidemic breaking out soon after their arrival, the idea of the natives being that foreigners always bring sickness and death in their train. ”

“ In Malicolo we found large images, made of a kind of cloth, and stuffed with some elastic substance—each in form like a well-shaped man, and painted like a mummy. All the islanders have traditions of the deluge, &c. ”