 Chapter 16 of The Romance of Missionary Heroism. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Romance of Missionary Heroism by John Chisholm Lambert. Chapter 16. In the Forests of Guyana. Four hundred years ago, when the beautiful West Indian islands were first discovered by the white men, they were inhabited by various native races of which the most powerful were the caribs, a fierce and cannibal people. The original home of the caribs, according to all their own traditions, was on the mainland of South America in the dense forests which stretch along the lower reaches of the Great River Orinoco. From the wide mouths of that river they had issued from time to time in their war canoes and swept like a storm cloud on the nearer islands of the West Indian Archipelago, killing and devouring the gentle and peaceful Arawaks and Waraiones who were in possession before them. In Robinson Crusoe we have the most vivid description in English literature of those cruel caribs of long ago. For though Alexander Selkirk served as the prototype of Defoe's immortal story, and Juan Fernandez in the South Pacific was the island in which that Scottish buccaneer was marooned for several years, it is really one of the West Indian islands, perhaps Tobago, that Defoe takes as the stage of Crusoe's exploits and experiences. The incident of the footprint on the sand, as well as the decidedly tropical vegetation of the island, is undoubtedly adopted from West Indian sources, and the cannibal scenes which are described with so much realism are probably derived from the writings of the early voyagers, who told of the inhuman habits of that savage Indian race which gave its name to the fair waters of the Caribbean Sea. From the Caribbean islands the old Indian races, both the conquering and the conquered, have now almost entirely disappeared. To find a pure-blooded representative of those primitive people, whom Columbus and the other early discoverers found there at the close of the fifteenth century, we have to go to the forests of the South American mainland, to which the broken relics of the aboriginal West Indian peoples, caribs, Arawaks, Waraiones and the rest, were long since driven by the tyranny of the Spaniard. Within the recollection of the present writer, Waraiones of the Orinoco used still to come paddling once a year across the blue gulf of Paria on a visit to the old home of their fathers in Trinidad, the nearest of all the West Indies to the South American continent. He can remember as a boy, going down with his father to the wharf at San Fernando, to see these Waraiones arriving, statuesque, sad-looking savages, absolutely naked, who brought with them for barter articles of their own manufacture, hammocks of great strength such as they swung to the trees in their forest homes, baskets ornamented with stained porcupine quills skillfully woven into the framework, mats similarly embellished with jumpy beads and other wild seeds, red, black or brown. In his, at last, A Christmas in the West Indies, Kingsley gives a beautiful description of the annual visit of the Waraiones to Trinidad, although he had not the opportunity of seeing this curious sight for himself. Once a year, till of late, I know not whether the sight may be seen still, a strange phantom used to appear at San Fernando, canoes of Indians came mysteriously across the Gulf of Paria, from the vast swamps of the Orinoco, and the naked folk landed and went up through the town, after the Naparima ladies, so runs the tail, had sent down to the shore garments for the women, which were worn only through the streets and laid by again as soon as they entered the forest. Silent, modest, dejected, the gentle savages used to vanish into the woods by paths made by their kinsfolk centuries ago, paths which run, wherever possible, along the vantage ground of the topmost chines and ridges of the hills. The smoke of their fires rose out of lonely glens as they collected the fruit of trees known only to themselves. In a few weeks their wild harvest was over, and they came back through San Fernando, made almost in silence their little purchases in the town, and paddled away across the Gulf towards the unknown wildernesses from whence they came. In the forests of Guiana, the society for the propagation of the Gospel has long carried on a most interesting work among the Caribs, Arawaks, Warayons, and other Indian tribes which still represent those island aborigines around whom gathers so much of the romance and tragedy of early West Indian history. None of the society's agents has been more diligent or successful than the reverent Mr. Brett, whose mission work in Guiana is a standard book on the subject of the Indian races of Venezuela and British Guiana. We shall follow Mr. Brett as he tells us something of his canoe voyages on the rivers and itabos of the Esaquibo district of his tramps through the tropical forests and swamps of dangers from pumas and jaguars by land and alligators and commodities by water of the ways and thoughts of the Indian folk and the power of religious truth to deliver them from the tyranny of immemorial superstitions and make them good Christians as well as law-abiding British subjects. It is more than sixty years since Mr. Brett began his labours among the Indians of Guiana and his task was beset in those early days by many serious difficulties. One was the wild character of the people and their hostility, the hostility especially of their sorcerers, to the teachers of a new religion. Mr. Yaud, a predecessor of Mr. Brett's, had received a gift of poisoned food from one of these sorcerers with the result that he and his whole family were poisoned. His wife and children all died, and though he himself lingered on for a few years it was in shattered health while he too eventually succumbed to the fatal influences in his blood. Another difficulty was caused by language, for in penetrating into the country the traveller, as he leaves the coast and plunges into the forest, passes rapidly from one tribe to another, all speaking different tongues. Nearest to the sea are the warayuns and the arowax, farther inland are the caribs, beyond these are the migratory aquawayos who do not live in villages but wander through the woods with their deadly blow-pipes by means of which they bring down from the highest trees the birds, monkeys and other animals that they use for food. Mr. Brett found it necessary to learn four Indian languages, none of which had ever before been reduced to a written form, and not only did he master them for himself, but prepared grammars and vocabularies which made the task of his successors infinitely easier, and also translated into all of them large parts of the New Testament. Not the least of the difficulties was that of travelling in such a country. It involved laborious and often dangerous canoe voyages and weary tramps through dense forests which at certain seasons were converted into dismal swamps. But Mr. Brett had the true enthusiasm and pluck of the pioneer missionary, and seems to have considered the hardships that fell to his lot as all in the day's work. Guiana is a land of many rivers, and this makes canoeing the chief method of travelling, especially as the forests themselves become inundated after the rains, and it is then possible to cross from river to river by means of passages called itabos. In this way, for example, an Indian crew can paddle across country from the Esaquibo to the mouth of the Orinoco, a distance of two or three hundred miles. It is not all plain sailing, however, in a voyage of this kind. Every few minutes the Indians have to use their cutlasses to lop away the network of interlacing branches and creepers which the prodigal growth of the tropics weaves so quickly from side to side of the narrow waterway. Sometimes again the passage is blocked by a great fallen tree, and then the missionary must lie down in the bottom of the canoe, while his boatman tried to thrust it underneath the barrier. This has to be done as quietly and swiftly as possible for fear of disturbing any venomous snake which may have taken up its abode in a hollow of the decaying trunk. But canoeing was not always feasible, and then would begin the tramp through the forests, those mysterious and awesome high woods of the tropics of which Kingsley writes with such enthusiasm. To the inexperienced traveller in this wilderness of rank vegetation, majestically confused, there sometimes comes the fear of being lost, for he feels his own helplessness as to direction, and knows that but for the instinct of his Indian guides he would soon go utterly astray. He is bewildered, too, by the multiplicity of strange sounds. Parrots are screeching, monkeys are chattering, zigales are piping on a high note which suggests a shrill steam whistle, insects innumerable are chirping and whirring, while at times, perhaps, there comes a noise like a muffled crash of thunder which tells that some ancient giant of the woods has fallen at last. The forests of Guyana are full of swamps, and when Mr. Brett came to these there was nothing for it but to take off his shoes and socks, sling them round his neck, and wade on through mud and slime. Repeated soakings often made his feet swell so badly that it was hardly possible to pinch them into shoes again, and he found it easier simply to go barefooted like an Indian. But this also had its disadvantages, for alternate wading through marshes and walking with bare feet over the burning sandy soil brought on painful blanes which, unless great care was taken, would pass into ulcers. Sometimes the swamps were so deep that they could not be waded, and the only means of crossing was by trees cut down and thrown across. These primitive forest bridges, which are also used for crossing the smaller streams and ravines, are often of considerable length. Mr. Brett tells of one which he measured, the trunk of a mora tree, which was 108 feet long from the place where the trunk was cut to the point at which the lowest branches began to spring. The Indians are quite expert at walking on these slippery pathways, but to a European with his boots on they present a formidable task. Mr. Brett's Indian companions were sometimes quite anxious about him, and on one occasion exhorted him to hold on with his feet, forgetting that toes encased as his were, in a good thick sole, are of no use for prehensile purposes. Apart from the malarial fevers to which in those low-lying tropical regions a European is constantly liable, the chief dangers encountered by Mr. Brett in his journeys into the interior came from the wild animals which swarm in Guiana, both on land and water. There are alligators of various sorts which, as amphibious creatures, are dangerous on both elements. Mr. Brett tells of one which made its nest in his own churchyard, and rushed savagely one evening at an assembly of mourners gathered round a grave, just as he had finished reading the burial service, scattering them in all directions. But not less dreaded than the alligator is the great Anaconda, or Kamudhi, as the Indians call it, a species of water boa which swims like an eel, and grows to the length of thirty feet. In the water the Kamudhi is more than a match for the alligator itself, and has been known even to attack persons who were inside a canoe. One Sunday morning an exciting fight took place in midstream between a Kamudhi and an alligator, exactly in front of a chapel on the bank of the river Pomerun, in which Mr. Brett was conducting divine service. At the news of the fight his congregation deserted him to a man, and even he could not resist the temptation to follow them as speedily as possible to the scene of action. The battle went on desperately for a long time, but at last the Kamudhi succeeded in getting that deadly grip with its tail which gives it full purchase for its gigantic strength, and then it drew its coils tighter and tighter round the body of its formidable antagonist until the life of the alligator seemed to be completely squeezed out. At this point one of the onlookers, who had a gun and was a good marksman, fired and killed the Kamudhi which sank to the bottom. The alligator drifted ashore by and by with its ribs crushed in, and in a dying condition when it too was dispatched. Besides the Labaria, a very deadly snake which lurks among bushes or in the holes of old trees, the traveler through the forests has always to be on his guard against the Puma and the Jaguar. The Puma is a formidable beast, but the great spotted Jaguar is the Tiger of South America, and is not much inferior in size or ferocity to the Tiger of the Indian Jungle. It is very destructive of goats, sheep, and cattle, and Mr. Brett tells us that he has often seen its footmarks in the morning on the moist ground all around a house, showing how it had been prowling about through the night in search of prey. The Jaguar does not hesitate on occasions to attack men, and within Mr. Brett's own knowledge several persons lost their lives in this way, being both killed and devoured. Its habit of concealing itself in a tree and making its deadly spring from that coin of vantage upon any animal that passes underneath renders great caution necessary in going along the forest ways. It has a wholesome dread of the rifle, however, and the march of civilization is driving it farther and farther into the recesses of the woods. But there are smaller creatures of the tropics for which civilization and the rifle have no terrors. There are myriads of butterflies, of course, which flutter past on wings of crimson and gold, darting hummingbirds, with ruby or emerald breasts gleaming in the sunlight, fireflies which come out at dusk and flit to and fro with their soft twinkling lights in the warm night air that is heavy with the breath of flowers. If the tiny creatures of the tropic woods were all like these, the traveller might fancy himself in a kind of earthly paradise. But what of the Marabuntas, which Trinidad boys used to call marrow-bones, from some idea that the stings of these fierce wasps which are fond of building their clay nests in the corners of the white man's veranda, would penetrate to that region of the juvenile anatomy? What of scorpions, centipedes, tarantulas, blood-sucking bats, betrush, jigos, or jiggers, and biting ants, whether black, white, or red? Worst of all, what of the ubiquitous, irrepressible, unconquerable mosquito, which sometimes almost drives its victims mad, and whose victories over man, its mortal foe, deserved to be sung in the notes of its own musical humming, and written with the blood of its helpless victims in some epic of the jungle? Mr. Brett does not exaggerate in the least when he reckons insect and other small annoyances among the most serious trials of missionary life in the inland districts of British Guiana. What sensitive white-skinned people have suffered from mosquitoes alone may be judged from this. At the season when the mosquitoes were at their worst, Mr. Brett's Indian crew, after a long and hard day's pull up the river, would sometimes paddle through the night for many a weary mile to the river's mouth and out to the open sea in the hope of escaping for two or three hours from the stings of these excruciating pests. Of the Indian tribes described by Mr. Brett, the warayuns are in some respects the most interesting, precisely because they are the most primitive. When Sir Walter Raleigh was passing through the channels of the Orinoco Delta in search of his imaginary El Dorado, he and his men were astonished to see fires burning high up in the air under the leafy crowns of palm trees. These were the hearth fires of the Orinoco warayuns, who become tree dwellers for several months of the year when their country is turned into a vast sheet of muddy water. Building a platform far up the stem of a palm tree, under the shelter of its overarching fronds, they plaster a part of this platform with clay to serve as a hearth and sit smoking contentedly in their airy habitations, except at such times as they feel disposed to slip down into a canoe so as to visit a friend in a neighboring tree or go out fishing with a view to supper. The warayuns of Guyana are not tree dwellers, for the floods on their rivers are not so severe as to make this necessary. But they are just as simple and unsophisticated as their brethren of the Orinoco. Except when Europeans come into their neighborhood and set up a standard and a rule of social decency, both men and women go absolutely naked. They are gentle and unwarlike even as their forefathers were three or four centuries ago when the caribs swept down upon them and drove them into the swamps. While skillful in their own arts of canoe hollowing and hammock weaving, they are extremely easygoing in their way of life and combine a good-natured disposition with a vein of humor which is somewhat rare among the Indian peoples. Like all other Indians they have a genuine belief in the Great Spirit, and they have many legends of their own about him and his dealings with men. The account they give of their origin is striking, though with a touch of the grotesque humor which characterizes them. The warayuns, they say, originally dwelt in a country above the sky. The arrow of a bold hunter falling by chance through a hole revealed to this hunter the existence of the lower world, making a rope of cotton he descended by it to the earth, and when he climbed up again brought such a glowing report of the game that swarmed in earthly forests that the whole race was tempted to come sliding down the cotton rope out of the paradise above. The last to make the attempt was a woman, and she, being fat, stuck in the hole and could neither squeeze herself through nor yet struggle back again. There she remains to this day, and that is the reason why the human race cannot even peep through the hole in the sky into the world above, a curious version we may think of the story of Paradise Lost, and an equally curious version of woman's responsibility for the absolute closing of the Gates of Eden. Among all the Indian tribes of Guyana, P.I. men, or sorcerers, are the priests of religion. The P.I. man corresponds to the medicine man of the North American Indians and the Obia man of Africa. No one dares to oppose him in anything, for he is an expert in poisons, and his enemies have a way of dying suddenly. In sickness the most implicit confidence is placed in his powers, which to some extent are medicinal no doubt, for he generally has a real acquaintance with the healing virtues of the plants of the forest, but to a much greater degree are supposed to be supernatural. His special function is to drive away the evil spirit that has taken possession of the sick man. This he does by rattling a hollow kalabash containing some fragments of rock crystal, an instrument of magical efficacy and the peculiar symbol of the P.I. man's office, by chanting a round of monotonous incantations, and by fumigating the patient plentifully with tobacco smoke, the incense of this Indian weed being firmly believed to exert a potent if mysterious influence. It was naturally from these P.I. men that the strongest resistance came to the introduction of Christianity among the Indians of Guyana. One of them, as has been mentioned already, poisoned an English missionary and his family, and Mr. Brett himself was frequently warned that the sorcerers were going to P.I. him also. Instead of this a strange thing happened. Sakibara, beautiful hair, the chief of the Arawaks and their leading sorcerer, became disgusted with the tricks and hypocrisies of his profession, broke his maraca or magical kalabash rattle, and came to Mr. Brett's hut, asking to be taught about the great our father who dwelleth in heaven. By and by he was baptized, receiving, instead of his heathen name, the Christian name of Cornelius. Cornelius the Arawak was a man of great intelligence, and it was with the aid of this converted Indian and his family that Mr. Brett was able to carry through his first efforts at translation. Still better things ensued, for five other sorcerers followed the example of Cornelius, gave up their maracas to Mr. Brett in token that they had renounced the practice of magic, and became faithful and useful members of the Christian church. Evangelists arose among the Indians themselves, chapels sprang up here and there in the depths of the forest, two of them, as was accidentally discovered at a later stage, having been built on ancient cannibal mounds. Struck by the appearance of these mounds, Mr. Brett was led to undertake a little excavation, and his researches speedily proved that the very spots where the house of God now stood, and Christ's gospel was preached from Sunday to Sunday, had once been the kitchen middens of large cannibal villages. There heaped together were the skulls and other bones of human beings slaughtered long ago, these skulls and bones being invariably cracked and split, in a way which showed that the hungry cannibals in their horrible feasts had eaten the very brains and marrow of their victims. We speak of the romance of missions, and even from the most external point of view they are often full of the romance that belongs to all heroism and adventure, but to those who look deeper the spiritual romance is the most wonderful, the transformation of character and life, the turning of a savage into a Christian. In the Pomeran district of Guyana, the center of Mr. Brett's labors, more than five thousand persons have been brought into the church through baptism. As for the moral and spiritual effect of his patient and heroic exertions, we may cite the testimony of the Pomeran civil magistrate, who at first did not encourage Christian work among the Indians. A more disorderly people than the Arawaks, he wrote, could not be found in any part of Guyana. Murders and violent cases of assault were a frequent occurrence. Now the case is reversed. No outrages of any description ever happen. They attend regularly divine service, their children are educated, they themselves dress neatly, are lawfully married, and as a body there are no people in point of general good conduct to surpass them. This change which has caused peace and contentment to prevail was brought about solely by missionary labor. CHAPTER XVII If from the point of view of Christian evangelization, South America has justly been called the neglected continent, there is no part of it to which until modern times the description more fitly applied than that southern portion of the mainland called Patagonia, together with the large archipelago of closely huddled islands which projects still farther towards the Antarctic Ocean, and is known by the rather inappropriate name of Tierra Del Fuego, or Land of Fire. The inaccessibility and desolation of the whole region, and the ferocious and almost inhuman character of the tribes encountered by vessels passing through the Straits of Magellan, which divide Fuegia from the mainland, for long made any thoughts of carrying the Christian gospel to this part of the heathen world seem absolutely visionary. The Fuegians in particular were looked upon as degraded almost beyond the hope of recovery. Travellers dwelt on their stunted figures, their repulsive faces, their low grade of intelligence, their apparent lack of natural affection, as shown by the readiness of parents to throw their children overboard in a storm in order to lighten a canoe, or of the children to eat their own parents when they had grown old and useless. Darwin, the most careful of observers, spent some time in the Magellan Straits in the course of his famous voyage in the Beagle, and he records the conviction that, in this extreme part of South America, man exists in a lower state of improvement than in any other part of the world. Viewing such men, he says on another page of his journal, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow creatures and inhabitants of the same world, of their speech he writes, the language of these people, according to our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European ever cleared his throat with so many horse, guttural, and clicking sounds. And yet, through the enterprise begun and inspired by that heroic man of whom we have now to tell, the almost unpronounceable sounds of the Fuygens' speech have been reduced to writing and made to convey the story of the Gospels, while the Fuygens themselves have been changed from murderous cannibals and thieves into peaceful, honest, and industrious members of a Christian community. When Darwin learned on the unimpeachable authority of a British admiral of the extraordinary difference which a few years had made in the habits of these people, whom he had once been inclined to regard as possibly furnishing a missing link between the monkey and the man, he confessed his astonishment. I could not have believed, he wrote, that all the missionaries in the world could ever have made the Fuygens honest, and he went on to speak of this transformation as one of the wonders of history. More than this, though not by any means a professing Christian, nor an advocate in general of Christian missions, he became from that time a regular subscriber to the funds of the society with whose founder we are at present concerned, about as emphatic an answer to the detractors of missions, the spectator once remarked, as well can be imagined. Alan Gardner was an ex-captain of the British navy. As a mid-shipman he had distinguished himself during a fierce engagement in 1814 between his ship, the Phoebe, and an American man of war, in which the British vessel was victorious, and he had risen step by step to the position of commander. When about forty years of age, however, he determined to abandon his chosen profession, and devote the rest of his life to work among the heathen, by whose wretched condition he had been deeply impressed as a Christian man, in the course of his many voyages in all parts of the world. He turned first of all to South Africa, and had some interesting experiences among the subjects of Dingan, the redoubtable Zulu chief. But war broke out between the Zulus and the Boers, and he was forced to leave the country. Several years thereafter were spent in the search for a suitable field of operations among the most neglected peoples of the world. We find him for a time on the coast of New Guinea, where, if he had not been thwarted by the Dutch officials, who had not the slightest sympathy with his aims, and declared that he might as well try to instruct monkeys as the natives of Papua, he might have largely anticipated the splendid work which was afterwards accomplished by the heroic Tamate. But it was in the western, not in the eastern hemisphere, that the great work of his life was to lie, and it was towards South America in particular that his steps were now guided. He was not drawn, however, in the first instance towards the Straits of Magellan, but to the brave Araucanian tribes of the Pampas and the Cordilleras. Two or three years were spent in toilsome and dangerous journeys through bristling forests and swampy jungles, and over well-nigh impassable mountains, where precipices yawned on one hand, while on the other avalanches of snow or rock threatened to hurl the traveller to destruction. But though he met with many kindnesses from the natives, he found wherever he went that the Romish friars and priests poisoned the minds of the ignorant people against him and prevented him from being allowed to settle down among them, and so he had to go forth again in search of his proper sphere. It was at this stage that he began to think of that dreary and desolate region in the neighborhood of Cape Horn, which as a sailor he had more than once visited, and with which in the history of modern missions his name will forever be associated. How to get there was his first difficulty, and it was a difficulty which only an experienced and skillful seamen could have overcome. He chartered a crazy old schooner, the owners of which regarded her as no longer fit to go to sea, and though still further hampered by a drunken and troublesome crew, succeeded in reaching the Straits of Magellan in March 1842. He had provided himself with a few stores, and his plan was to settle on one or other of the islands and try to win the confidence of the inhabitants. How difficult this task would be, he soon discovered. Wherever he landed, whether on the islands or on the Patagonian coast, the Indians showed themselves so unfriendly that he realized the impossibility of making any headway without some help and some more adequate equipment. He resolved accordingly to return to England without delay, and tried to persuade one or other of the great missionary societies to take Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego under its care. Unfortunately not one of the existing societies was in a position at that time to undertake any fresh responsibilities. But Gardener, nothing daunted, next made his appeal to the Christian public, and succeeded at last in originating on a very humble scale what is now known as the South American Missionary Society. He undertook to labor, as he had always done before, at his own expense, but the society furnished him with an assistant in the shape of a catechist named Mr. Hunt. Embarking in a brig called the Rosalie, which was to pass through the Magellan Straits, these two devoted men were landed with their stores about three months after on the south coast of Patagonia and there left to their own devices. For a time they could see nothing of any natives, though they lighted fires in the hopes of attracting notice. Meanwhile they set to work to build huts in which to shelter themselves, and shortly after they had completed this task, received some troublesome visitors in the persons of a chief whose name was Wisali, his wives and children, and a party of followers. Wisali, who had picked up a few words of English from passing ships, combined unbounded greed with a good deal of slinus. He soon began to make matters exceedingly uncomfortable for the two Englishmen. His intention apparently was to force his company upon them, especially at mealtimes, and compel them to put their scanty stores at his disposal. He came into the hut attended by his patriarchal family, and placing one child in Captain Gardener's arms said, this your son Honteci, while he handed another to Mr. Hunt with the remark, Mr. Hunt, this your son looks. From greed and impudence he gradually passed to threats of violence, and it was speedily evident to the two unfortunate philanthropists, not only that their provisions would soon be eaten up, but that in the mood of Wisali and his men their lives were hanging by a very slender thread. In this state of matters a passing ship bound for Valparaiso seemed to be providentially sent. Captain Gardener felt that he had no alternative but to confess himself defeated, and once more to return to England. The members of the Patagonian society, as the South American society was originally called, were much discouraged. The leader of their forlorn hope, however, never for a moment lost heart. Hope deferred, not lost, is now the society's motto, and the faith embodied in these words was the faith by which Gardener lived. In the meantime he volunteered to see whether anything could be done among the Indians of Bolivia, and flung himself into this new departure with characteristic energy, until one of those domestic revolutions which are so common in the history of South American republics drove him out of the country, and made him feel once again that Tierra del Fuego was his Macedonia which was calling to him for help. On this occasion, having raised the necessary funds by his own exertions, he persuaded the society to allow him to take out a party of four sailors and a ship's carpenter. He intended the expedition to be in a measure one of exploration, the special purpose being to see whether a suitable base of operations could not be secured, and what would be the best method of reaching the scattered tribes of the Archipelago. Owing to his former connection with the navy, he had some influence at headquarters, and by this means one of Her Majesty's ships, the Climini, which was about to sail for Peru, was placed at his disposal. The Climini reached Magellan Straits at a time when a hurricane of wind was blowing, accompanied by violent storms of sleet and hail, but after suffering severely from exposure to the inclement weather, Captain Gardner was able to select a spot for his proposed station in a cove to which he gave the name of Banner Cove with reference to Psalm 64. The friendly warship, however, had not yet proceeded on her voyage when a band of natives came down on the little party encamped on the shore in so hostile and threatening an attitude that Gardner felt that he must decide immediately whether it would be right to remain in this situation without any possible means of escape in the event of an attack. He had only a few hours in which to make up his mind, and the conclusion he came to was that he had no right to run the risk of sacrificing the lives of his five companions. He now began to realize that the only way in which he could hope to evangelize Phuegia was by having a vessel of his own on board of which he might live when necessary and be free at the same time to move about among the islands. Accordingly he re-embarked with his party on the Climini and continued his voyage to Peru, from which he made his way homeward via Panama and the West Indies. Though his new idea filled him with fresh enthusiasm, his enthusiasm was not widely shared. At this we can hardly wonder. There are not many persons who possess a hero's indomitable courage together with the perseverance of Bruce's spider. Some of the captain's best friends advised him to give the whole thing up. Only with my life was his reply. Finding so little prospect of help in England he went over to Germany and tried to enlist the sympathies of the Moravian brethren. But though deeply impressed by the man and his story, and very anxious to do what they could, they were obliged to abandon the thought of giving him any practical aid. He next visited Scotland and laid his plans before the mission boards of the three great Presbyterian churches, but none of them felt free to plunge into a new and difficult undertaking. At this juncture, just when the prospects were most unpromising, a lady in Cheltenham came forward with a munificent donation, while at the same time several exceedingly suitable offers of personal service were received by the Society. The result was that a party of seven was made up, which included, besides Captain Gardner himself, Mr. Williams, a surgeon, Mr. Maidment, a Sunday school teacher, three Cornish fishermen, and the ship's carpenter which had taken part in the previous expedition. Further, in accordance with the leader's plans, two strong double-decked launches were provided, either of which could furnish sleeping accommodation for the whole party. Having taken passage from Liverpool on the Ocean Queen, Captain Gardner and his companions, with their stores and boats, were landed in Banner Cove on December 17th, 1850, writing by the Ocean Queen, which left next day for California, Gardner says, in the last letter which his friends in England were ever to receive, nothing can exceed the cheerful endurance and unanimity of the whole party. I feel that the Lord is with us, and cannot doubt that he will own and bless the work which he has permitted us to begin. From that point, all communication with the outer world absolutely ceased. From the hour when they stood in their two launches, the Pioneer and the Speedwell, waving their last farewells to the departing ship, those seven brave men were never seen by friendly eyes in life again. It was in the awful loneliness and desolation of those barren islands, and bleak southern seas that the tragedy was enacted of which we have now to tell. When the party landed, they were provided with necessaries for only half a year, the arrangement being that early in 1851 supplies for the other six months should be dispatched from England. Early in January the society began to make inquiries about a vessel, but to their dismay not one could be got to undertake the commission. From every quarter to which they applied, the answer came, no vessel would risk her insurance by attempting to land so small a freight as your stores, in such a place as Tierra del Fuego. Matters were now growing very serious, for ocean telegraphs were still things of the future, and those were the slow days of sailing ships. Application was made to the admiralty in the hope of getting the goods conveyed by one of their vessels. At the time, however, no government ship was commissioned to that quarter of the world, and it was not till the last day of October, 1851, more than a year after the departure of the ocean queen from Liverpool, that HMS Dido left Devonport with the belated stores on board. By that time Captain Gardner and every member of his party had already been starved to death, and their unburied corpses were lying here and there along a wild and rocky shore. But we must now return to Banner Cove and follow the story as it lies revealed in Gardner's own diary. Having landed with some difficulty owing to a sudden gale which sprang up before the ocean queen was out of sight, the seven pioneers succeeded in making a cache among the rocks without being observed by the natives. Here they deposited a reserve stock of provisions, thinking it's safer to do this than to keep everything stored in the launches. Not long after the Fouagians made their appearance, several war canoes gathered in the bay, the men on board being all armed with spears, and it was clear from their demeanor that nothing but their dread of guns kept them from attacking instantly, and that they were only waiting for a suitable opportunity to make a sudden and overwhelming rush. The captain accordingly resolved, though with great reluctance, to leave Banner Cove, and sailed to another inlet known as Spaniard Harbor. A few days after their arrival in that place, one of those violent hurricanes sprang up for which the region all around Cape Horn is so notorious. The boats were torn from their anchorage and dashed ashore. The stores and bedding were much damaged, but were secured and transferred to a damp cave. Here the whole party slept for two nights, with the result that every one of them was attacked by severe rheumatism. Meanwhile the pioneer had been driven high up on the beach in so disabled a condition as to be past repairing, and it was decided to let her lie where she was and use her cabin as a sleeping-place. Troubles now began to thicken, scurvy broke out, a deadly disease for men in such a situation, and not long after provisions began to run short. Now and then a few fish were caught, or an occasional wild fowl was knocked over on the beach, but no reliance could be put upon these sources of support. An expedition was accordingly made in the Speedwell to Banner Cove in the hope of securing the provisions left in the cash, but two casks of biscuits were all that could now be found, and these were hardly got when the natives again gathered in force and compelled a hasty retreat. The remaining months were months of dreadful suffering. It had now become evident that food might utterly fail before any relief came. The outlook was dark indeed. Not only was starvation staring them in the face, but disease had laid its innervating hand upon every one of them. We can picture those weary men with each returning morning standing on the shore and scanning the horizon with anxious eyes, waiting for the ship that never came, while the waves beat monotonously on the beach and the seabirds screamed ominously overhead. And yet they seem never to have lost their courage or their faith. When the hope of life was gone they waited patiently for death, and when it came at last met it with cheerful resignation. And now something must be said of the search for Gardner and its results. HMS Dido was not the first vessel to reach Banner Cove. The schooner John Davidson under Captain W. H. Smiley, which had been hastily commissioned for the purpose in a South American port, arrived there on 21 October, 1851. No one was to be seen, but on the rocks at the entrance to the Cove the words were painted, dig below, go to Spaniard Harbor, March 1851. Digging they found a note written by Captain Gardner in which he said, the Indians being so hostile we have gone to Spaniard Harbor. Following these directions Captain Smiley sailed through the place indicated, where in his own words he saw a sight that was awful in the extreme. In a stranded boat on the beach a dead body was lying, not far off was another washed to pieces by the waves, while yet a third lay half buried in a shallow grave. One of the three was the surgeon Mr. Williams, the other two were fishermen. No traces of Captain Gardner and the rest were to be seen, and a heavy gale which sprang up all at once made it impossible to linger. Captain Smiley and his men had barely time to bury the dead on the beach, in the teeth of a blinding snowstorm, and, as it was, experienced great difficulty in getting back to the schooner. They sailed at once for Montevideo with their dreadful news. Next came the Dido from England. She too was guided from Banner Cove to Spaniard Harbor by the notice on the rocks, and her commander, setting to work with the energy and thoroughness, characteristic of a British naval officer, succeeded in clearing up all that remained of the painful mystery. The body of Mr. Madement was found in a cave to which direction was given by a hand painted on the rocks, with psalms sixty-two, five through eight, painted underneath. The remains of Captain Gardner himself were discovered by the side of a boat from which he seemed to have climbed out, and been unable to get in again. For protection against the cold he had put on three suits of clothes and drawn woolen stockings over his arms above the other clothing. Below the waistcoat the seagulls had been at work, and had lessened the effects of corruption. His Bible was at hand, containing numberless underlined passages, many of which seemed to have been marked during the time of his suffering as peculiarly suited to his circumstances. Gardner's journal was also found, carefully written up to the last, and giving many touching details of those dreadful months of starvation, disease, and slowly approaching death. Throughout all that period of anxiety and pain the strong faith of this heroic man appears to have burned like a lamp, while a spirit of affectionate brotherhood and quiet acceptance of the Divine Will was displayed by every member of the doomed band. The Captain's last words seemed to have been written when death was very near, and when his mind had begun to wander a little, he addresses himself to Mr. Williams, apparently forgetful of the fact which is proved by his own journal that the surgeon was already gone. The note is in pencil, written very indistinctly, and obliterated here and there. My dear Mr. Williams, the Lord has seen fit to call home another of our little company. Our dear departed brother left the boat on Tuesday afternoon and has not since returned. Doubtless he is in the presence of the Redeemer whom he served faithfully. Yet a little while, and though the Almighty to sing the praises, throne, I neither hunger nor thirst, though five days without food, Maidment's kindness to me, Heaven, your affectionate brother in Allen F. Gardener, September 6, 1851. Captain Morsehead of the Dido gathered the remains together and buried them close to the cave in which the body of Mr. Maidment was found, the ship's flags hung at half-mast, one of the officers read the service for the dead, and three volleys of musketry were fired over the solitary grave. Allen Gardener's life is apt to strike us at first as one that was no less tragic in the fruitlessness of its great purpose than in the misery of its end. But it was not in vain that he strove, and above all it was not in vain that he and his brave comrades laid down their lives for Tierra del Fuego, the story of Captain Gardener's death stirred England as he had never been able to stir her during his strenuous life. It gave a new impulse to the ideals which had led to the formation of the South American Missionary Society. It helped to bring about in due course, through the heroic labours of other noble men who took up the unfinished task, that complete transformation of the Fuegians to which reference was made in the beginning of this chapter. The people of Tierra del Fuego are no longer a degraded and cruel race. The terror of the sailor wrecked upon their dreary coasts. In every part of the archipelago to which the message of the gospel has penetrated they are a humane and civilized folk, ready to give a kindly Christian welcome to any poor, shipless mariner who has struggled to their shores out of the devouring waves. The Romance of Missionary Heroism by John Chisholm Lambert Chapter 18 The Schooner of Keppel Island Not long before the death of the heroic sailor who forms the subject of the preceding chapter he drew up a plan for the future prosecution of the work to which he had devoted his life. He had learned by painful familiarity the difficulties and dangers which beset any attempt to settle at that time among a savage and unfriendly people in a barren and inhospitable land. Experience had shown him that there was a better way of attacking the problem of how to reach the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego. And though he was not spared to make trial of that way himself, those who took up the task which death compelled him to lay down reaped the benefit of his hard-earned wisdom. His plan in brief was this. The headquarters of the mission should be transferred to one of the Falkland Islands, a lonely British group lying in the South Atlantic, some four or five hundred miles to the northeast of Cape Horn. To this station, a few of the Fuegian natives should be taken in successive parties so that the missionaries might have the double opportunity of acquiring their language and instructing them in Christian truth and the elements of a Christian civilization. As soon as sufficient progress had been made in both directions, a little vessel of about one hundred tons was to be built for the purpose of cruising about in the Straits of Magellan. It must be perfectly seaworthy so as to face the fierce storms that rage around Cape Horn from the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean. But it must also be fitted up internally in keeping with its character as a floating mission house. In this way Captain Gardner hoped that the problem which had baffled him so long would at last be solved. When the news reached England of the dreadful calamity which had overtaken the founder of the South American Mission Society and his whole party, the general feeling was that the brave seamen's hopes and plans were now buried with him forever in his lonely grave. But it was not so, at a time when most of the supporters of the society were crushed and dispirited, the honorary secretary, the reverent GP Despard, uttered the noble words, with God's help the mission shall be maintained. He aroused in many others a spirit of prayerful determination like his own, and before long Captain Gardner's schemes began to be literally fulfilled. A stout little schooner, fitly called the Allen Gardner, was launched at Dartmouth, and sailed from Bristol in 1855 with a fresh staff of missionaries. Capell Island, one of the West Falklands, was secured from the British Government as a mission station. To crown the brightening prospects, Mr. Despard himself offered his services as superintendent of the mission, and sailed for the Falklands with his own family and several additional helpers. Among these, it is interesting to note, was Mr. Allen W. Gardner, Demi of Modlin College, Oxford, the only son of the departed hero. The first work that faced the missionaries on reaching the dreary uninhabited island which was to be their home, was the building of houses, the digging of peat for winter fuel, and the endeavor to contribute to their own maintenance by catching fish and birds for food and spearing seal for oil. It was a toilsome life they had to live, but not without variety. Every morning the men turned out at 6.30 to dig in the peat moss till breakfast time. Each following hour of the day brought its appointed tasks. But when evening fell they gathered round their seal oil lamps, to study those languages which seemed most likely to fit them for the greater work to which they eagerly looked forward. The first voyage which Mr. Despard made to Tierra del Fuego in the Allen Gardner was chiefly important because it enabled the members of the new staff to see among the wild rocks of Spaniard Harbor the last resting place of their seven predecessors. A pathetic feature of the cruise was the fact that Mr. Allen W. Gardner was one of those on board. He kept a careful diary, some of the entries in which are particularly touching. Thus we find him, when the schooner is about to leave Spaniard Harbor, asking the captain for the gig and rowing himself ashore alone to take a last look with what feelings we can imagine at Pioneer Cavern and his father's grave. There was comparatively little intercourse with the natives on this first expedition to the islands, but better success attended a voyage in the following year. There was a well-known native at that period who had once been taken to England by a ship captain, and had picked up a little English which he was always pleased to air before the sailors of any passing vessel. He had also acquired an English name for he called himself Jimmy Button, while the little island on which he lived and which lay off Wulia on the large island of Narraveen was known as Button Island. In the hope of coming across Jimmy Button the Allen Gardner bore up for Wulia. It was a regular winter morning when they arrived, snow lying on the deck and drifting into the sails and rigging, the wind fitful howling and gusty. Running for a cove abreast of Button Island they found two canoes lying in shelter. One of the natives shouted out as the schooner approached, Hello, hoy, hoy, which suggested that he might be the celebrated Button in person, but when the name Jimmy Button was shouted back he only pointed to the island. It was two days after, a lovely winter morning, with the sun shining brightly on the frosty ground and the high peaks of the mountains all dazzling white with snow, when four canoes were seen rounding the point of Button Island and coming across the sound. As soon as they were within hailing distance Mr. Gardner sang out, Jimmy Button, whereupon a man stood up in the foremost canoe and answered, Yes, sir. In a few minutes Jimmy came up the ladder and shook hands and was soon down in the cabin enjoying a breakfast of bread and butter with coffee. He seemed very frank and gave his own people a good character, but mentioned that an English ship had fallen shortly before into the hands of an adjoining tribe by whom every one of the crew was killed. As Jimmy's command of a little English promised to be useful with a view to intercourse, he was asked if he would like to come with his wife and children to Kepel Island for several months. He was perfectly willing to do so, perhaps thinking that a course of English breakfasts would be a pleasant change from an unvarying diet of fish and seaweed. His family and he were accordingly given a passage to Kepel, the history of which as a mission station may now be said properly to begin. The Buttons made themselves both agreeable and useful during their stay. Mrs. Despard speaks of Jimmy's great politeness and tells how for any little trifle she might give him he would go and pick her a beautiful bouquet of wild flowers or spear her a basket of fish. His eldest child also to whom he had given the curious and unexplainable name of three boys became a general favorite. But the family were of less service as instructors in the Fuyijin language than had been expected. They did not like to speak their own tongue before the white strangers, and when they conversed with one another always did so in a whisper. On his next voyage to Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Despard took Jimmy Button, according to Promise, back to the familiar life of the wigwam and the canoe. He had no difficulty, however, in persuading three other natives with their wives and children to return with him to the Falklands. These families stayed, as the Buttons had done, through the winter and spring, and delighted everyone by their progress. Two lads named Okoko and Luca seemed to be especially promising. They not only learned with ease to do a little carpentry, but appeared to understand all that was told them about God and Christ, and even began to give thanks at their meals and to pray at their bedside. Forming his judgment of the Fuyijin character from what he had seen of the natives of Capell during months of close observation, Mr. Despard believed that the ferocity of the people must have been overstated, and that they could not be so blood thirsty as they were commonly represented. He thought, therefore, that the first steps should now be taken towards establishing a missionary station in Tierra del Fuego itself, and he resolved to make a start at Wulia, the neighborhood from which all his visitors had come. The enterprise was put into the hands of Mr. Phillips, one of the most trusted of the staff, and the Allen Gardener sailed from Capell Island for Wulia in the month of October, 1859. Week after week passed away, and there was no sign of the returning vessel. At length Mr. Despard grew so anxious that he made his way to Stanley, the chief port of the Falklands, and engaged Captain Smiley of the Schooner Nancy to sail at once on a voyage of inquiry. It was not long before Captain Smiley returned with news not less terrible than that which he had been the first to bring eight years before, regarding the fate of Captain Gardener and his party. The natives at Wulia had massacred Mr. Phillips, Captain Fell of the Allen Gardener, and six others. Of the whole company on board the Schooner, only one had escaped. From this man, who had been the ship's cook, the following narrative was obtained. When the Allen Gardener reached Wulia, the people appeared perfectly friendly, and for several days a good deal of intercourse went freely on between the vessel and the shore. Sunday coming round a landing was made on the island with the view of conducting Christian worship in the presence of the natives, only the cook being left on board in charge. For a time everything seemed to go well, but suddenly a concerted rush was made upon the white men and all were barbarously murdered. Not a hand or a voice was raised in their defense, though the cook saw the lad Okoko running up and down the beach in evident distress. We can imagine the feelings of that solitary watcher on the Schooner's deck as he gazed with horror-stricken eyes on the dreadful scene which was enacted on the shore a few hundred yards from where he stood, with a sense of absolute powerlessness to help them, he saw all his companions brutally done to death, and he knew that his own turn would come next, unless he could make his escape before the savages, now drunk with blood, attacked the vessel. Realizing that now or never was his chance, he slid down into a boat, and rowing with all haste to the shore, disappeared in the depths of the dense forest before his red-handed pursuers could overtake him. In these forest depths he lay hid for several days, till at length hunger and cold drove him out among the natives. By this time their passion for blood seemed to have been sated, and though he got rough treatment from some of them, others supplied him with food and showed him a little kindness until the arrival of the Nancy placed him once more in the midst of friends. Meanwhile the Alan Gardner had been completely ransacked and plundered, but not burnt or otherwise destroyed, and Captain Smiley was able to convey her back to the Falkland Islands in safety. He brought along with him the lad Okoko and his wife Kamalina, who were very earnest in their entreaties to be removed from their barbarous surroundings and taken back once more to their Christian friends at Keppel Island. Thus what may be called the first chapter in the strange romance of a missionary schooner closed in a scene of tragedy and blood, it was more than three years before the Alan Gardner sailed to Tierra del Fuego again. The next voyage of the schooner was to England, to which Mr. Despard now returned, leaving two missionaries to hold the fort in Keppel Island until better days should come. One of these was William Bartlett, who had charge of the mission farm, the other was Mr. Bridges, Mr. Despard's adopted son, a young man of a very fine spirit and possessed of a rare faculty for language. To him more than to any other the missionaries owed their eventual mastery of the difficult Fuwei Jin Tong, an acquirement which smoothed away many obstacles and misunderstandings. In the care of the mission property, in the further instruction of Okoko and Kamalina, and the task of learning not only to speak Fuwei Jin, but how to reduce it to a grammar, these two brave men wild away the lonely months and years of waiting. After two such crushing blows as had now fallen upon the South American society within the space of eight years, it might almost be supposed that any idea of converting the Fuwei Jin's would be finally abandoned. But the patient heroism of the founder had become part of the society's inheritance, and there was no slackening in the determination to go on. The story of some missions is inspiring because of the vast and striking results which are achieved. There was no possibility of vast results among the scanty and dwindling tribes of a desolate archipelago. But this only makes us admire the more the undaunted courage and unfaltering perseverance of those who, in the face of one terrible disaster after another, still took for their motto, with God's help the mission shall be maintained. With a view to increasing both her seaworthiness and her accommodation, the Allen Gardener was now lengthened, and therefore this historic schooner sailed from Bristol once again, with a fresh missionary party, to resume her work in the icy southern seas. The leader of the enterprise on this occasion was the well-known Mr. Sterling, who seven years afterwards was consecrated as the first bishop of the Falkland Islands. The plans of the society as well as its schooner had now been enlarged. Its operations were about to be extended northwards along the South American coast until they should reach from Cape Horn to Panama. Tierra del Fuego, however, still remained the special objective of the Allen Gardener, and one of Mr. Sterling's earliest duties was to reopen that communication with the natives, which had ceased after the massacre of 1859. He was greatly assisted in this task by both Mr. Bridges and O'Coco, for the former had now become quite an expert info-agent, while the latter could speak English very well. As the schooner sailed about among the islands, the missionaries by means of these two highly competent interpreters made their friendly intentions everywhere known. At Wulia they were received with some suspicion, for the people there, recognizing the vessel, thought not unnaturally that it had come back now on a mission of vengeance, but when persuaded that their crime had been forgiven, and that Mr. Sterling and his companions had no thoughts towards them but thoughts of peace, they became quite enthusiastic, and far more of them volunteered to come to Capell Island than could possibly be accommodated there. The chief difficulty now was to select from among the applicants those who were most likely to be of use in furthering the aims of the mission. The change for the natives from Tierra del Fuego to the Falklands was no doubt great. At home their time was largely spent in paddling about in their frail canoes. They lived mainly on fish, which they speared with great dexterity, their only vegetable diet being seaweed from the rocks, or fungi, which grew plentifully on the rugged hills. One of the occasional excitements of existence came from the arrival of a shoal of whales. They did not venture to attack those monsters of the deep in the open sounds, but they were frequently indebted to the fierce swordfish, which would so harass the clumsy creatures that they floundered into the shallows and got stranded, and then the hungry and watchful Indians had their chance. At Capell Island the Fuagians had to live a life that was much more civilized. They were expected to attend at Christian worship every day, and the younger members of the community were taught the elements of an ordinary education. But they were not asked to live after a fashion which would have been quite unnatural for them, as it was recognized that allowance and provision must be made for their hereditary instincts. And so, while they were trained to habits of industry in the Mission Gardens and the Peat Valley, they still enjoyed the pleasures of spearing fish, as well as the novel and to them the most exhilarating excitement of chasing the cattle, which were bred on the Mission Farm, but allowed to run in a wild state over the island. It shows the deep-seated impulses of the natural man that even those who had stayed for a period at the station, and had learned to appreciate the comforts of a settled life and the blessings of Christianity, were generally quite glad by and by to go back to their own people. Their minds were now uplifted and enlarged, but they still loved the old, familiar, adventurous canoe life among the creeks and sounds of the Magellan Straits. Some time after the arrival of Mr. Sterling, the growing confidence inspired by the missionaries received a striking illustration. On one of the cruises of the Allen Gardener, the natives of Wulia, of their own accord, pointed out the spot where they had laid the bodies of the eight men whom they had murdered in November, 1859. They had carefully carried them to a quiet place among the rocks, and covered them with large stones to keep them from being eaten by the foxes. And here, ever since, in their rocky sepulchres, they had been lying undisturbed. Two of the bodies, those of Mr. Phillips and Captain Fell, could still be identified quite unmistakably. All were reverently lifted and buried in a Christian grave with the simple and beautiful rites of the Church of England. The collect for St. Stephen's Day was most appropriately read, with its reference to the first Christian martyr and his prayer for those who murdered him. The schooner's flag meanwhile hung half massed high, and at the close of the service two signal guns booming across the water and echoing from rock to rock, announced to the company of Christian mourners and awestruck natives that all was over. Year after year the Allen Gardener continued to go forth on her blessed work, bringing successive batches of natives to Capell, and taking them back again after a while to their wild homes to act the part of the leaven in the midst of the meal. And at last in 1869 a mission station was opened by Mr. Sterling in person, at Ushuea, some distance to the west of Spaniard Harbour, sacred to the memory of Captain Gardener and on the south coast of the main island of Tierra del Fuego. Here for seven months Mr. Sterling lived in a little hut, before which he often paced up and down as the shadows of evening were falling upon sea and mountain, feeling, he tells us, as if he were a sentinel stationed at the southernmost outpost of God's great army. From this remotest outpost of the Church of Christ he was summoned suddenly to England to be consecrated Bishop of the Falkland Islands, with a diocese which included practically the whole of the South American continent. The work he had begun in Ushuea was taken up by Mr. Bridges and others, and when Bishop Sterling next saw the place in 1872 it was a little Christian settlement that lay before him. Sterling House, the iron house of the mission, occupied a conspicuous position, while around it were the wigwams and cultivated gardens of a native colony. A little chapel showed the consecration of the whole to God, and in that chapel on the Lord's Day the Bishop joined with Mr. Bridges, now an ordained clergyman, in administering the sacrament of baptism to thirty-six Fuayjans, adult and infant, and in joining seven couples in Christian marriage. A genuine reformation in the Fuayjan character had now begun, that for which first Captain Gardner and his whole party, and at a later date Mr. Phillips and Captain Fell, with six other gallant men, had laid down their lives was already in process of accomplishment. The brutal natives of the archipelago were being transformed into the likeness of peaceable Christian men and women. The best, because the most disinterested proof of this, is found in a British Admiralty Chart of 1871. In this chart the attention of mariners passing through the Straits of Magellan is directed to the existence of the mission station of Oshuea, and they are assured that within a radius of thirty miles no shipwrecked crew need expect other than kindly treatment from any natives into whose hands they may fall. End of Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of The Romance of Missionary Heroism This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Romance of Missionary Heroism by John Chisholm Lambert Chapter 19 The Martyr Bishop of Melanesia The Duke of Wellington used to be credited with the striking remark the Battle of Waterloo was one in the playing fields of Eaton. Like many other memorable sayings which have been attributed to great men, this one is now generally believed to be apocryphal. Nevertheless, in its own paradoxical and exaggerated way it embodies a truth, the truth being that the boy is the father of the man, and that the victories of after years find their explanation in the qualities of strength and courage and manly endurance which have been worked into the character when life was young. The hero of the following story happens to have been an Eaton boy, and one who greatly distinguished himself among his companions in the Eaton playing fields. And no one who reads the story of his life can fail to see that the school boy was the father of the missionary, that it was the same qualities of athletic vigor, of enthusiasm, of moral strength by which Coley Patterson was marked out at Eaton College, that gained him his place of renown in the history of missions as the Apostle and Martyr of Melanesia. John Coleridge Patterson, Coley Patterson, as he was familiarly called, was the son of Mr. Justice Patterson, a distinguished lawyer in his time, and the grand-nephew of the poet Coleridge. As a boy he was especially distinguished for his physical prowess, which raised him ultimately to the coveted position of Captain of the Eaton Eleven. Once in the annual match with Hero at Lord's, it was Patterson who won the game for his school by putting on fifty runs and completely breaking the neck of the Hero bowling. On another occasion, in a game at Eaton, he so persistently defied the bowling of Lily White, the famous professional, that the latter became quite irritated and said, Mr. Patterson, I should like to bowl to you on Lord's ground, and it would be different. It was characteristic of young Patterson's modesty to reply at once, oh, of course, I know you would have me out directly there. But this brilliant Eaton cricketer had other qualities which do not always accompany athletic distinction. He was a quick and diligent scholar, especially strong in languages, a fact which stood him in good stead when he came to move about in a scattered archipelago, almost every island of which had its own separate dialect. Better still, he was a lad of fearless moral courage. While up to any amount of fun, ready to sing his song at a cricket or football supper as mirthfully as the most light-hearted of the party, he could not tolerate any kind of coarseness or indecency. At the annual dinner of the Eaton Eleven the custom had grown up of allowing rather objectionable songs to be given. After Coley Patterson had passed into the Eleven, he was present at a dinner when one of the boys began to sing a ditty of a decidedly questionable character. At once Coley called out, if that does not stop I shall leave the room, and as the singer went on he jumped up and went out. His next step was to intimate to the captain that unless an apology was made he would leave the Eleven. Knowing that he could not dispense with so brilliant a bat, the captain compelled the offender to apologize, and during the rest of Coley Patterson's time at Eaton no more songs of that kind were sung at the annual dinner. It was while Coley was at Eaton, and when he was about fourteen years of age, that a vision of what was to be the great work of his life first dawned upon him. In the parish church of Windsor one Sunday afternoon he heard a missionary sermon from Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, a diocese which at that time included the Melanesian Islands, and he was deeply touched by the bishop's appeal for help. Not long afterwards in his father's house he met Bishop Selwyn face to face, the bishop who was just about to leave England for the South Seas turned to the boy's mother and said, half in playfulness, half in earnest, Lady Patterson will you give me Coley? From that day forward, deep down in the heart of the lad, there lived the thought of some day joining the heroic bishop of New Zealand in his pioneer work among the islanders of the Pacific. But something must now be said about Melanesia and Bishop Selwyn. When the Sea of New Zealand was first formed the bishop was entrusted with the care of the innumerable islands dispersed in various groups over the South Pacific. The interest of the Church of England and the islanders however had been anticipated by the zeal of other churches or missionary societies. The Wesleyans were at work in the Fiji Islands, the Presbyterians in the New Hebrides, the London Missionary Society ever since the time of John Williams in Polynesia. There still remained farther to the west and forming a far off fringe along the southeastern coast of New Guinea and the northeastern coast of Australia, the Melanesian or Black Island group so called because the inhabitants are darker skinned than the other Pacific races and appear to have a good deal of the Negro in their composition. Bishop Selwyn very wisely resolved that to prevent overlapping of missionary effort and consequent confusion of the native mind he would confine his attentions to these Melanesians and he entered into his labours among them with all the ardor and heroism of the true pioneer. Like his future colleague, Coloridge Patterson, he was a distinguished athlete. He had rode in the first inter-university boat race in 1829 and was further a splendid pedestrian and a magnificent swimmer. In his work in Melanesia all these powers came into full play. There was nothing of the conventional bishop about his outward appearance or manner of life. His usual way of landing on an island was to take a header from a boat which lay off at a safe distance and swim ashore through the surf. When hard manual work had to be done he was the first to set the example. If dangers had to be met he did not hesitate to face them. If hardships had to be borne he bore them cheerfully. Once for instance when an inhospitable chief refused him the shelter of a hut he retired to a pigsty and spent the night there in patience and content. How versatile he was may be judged from an instance like the following. On one occasion he had undertaken by request to convey to New Zealand in his missionary schooner a Melanesian chief's daughter and her attendant native girl. The pair were dressed according to the ideas of propriety which prevailed in the islands but were hardly presentable in a British colony. The bishop spent much of his time on the voyage in manufacturing to the best of his ability out of his own counterpane two petticoats for the dark maidens and so attractive did he make the garments with their trimmings of scarlet ribbon that the girls were as delighted to put them on as the bishop was anxious that they should do so. One of the great difficulties of the work in Melanesia sprang from the endless varieties of dialects which were employed. Bishop Selwyn conceived the plan of persuading native youths from the different islands to come with him to New Zealand to undergo there a course of instruction and training which would fit them for Christian work among their own people when they returned but if this plan was to be carried out efficiently there was need of assistance and such assistance as was required was by no means easy to find. The man wanted must be possessed of physical hardy-hood ready and fit to rough it as the bishop himself did while cruising among the islands but he must also be a man of culture and character to whom the difficult task of educating the native youths could be safely entrusted. In search of such a helper as this bishop Selwyn eventually paid a visit to England. Thirteen years had passed since he had stirred the missionary instinct in young Paterson's soul by saying to his mother in his hearing, will you give me Coley? Neither the bishop nor the boy had forgotten the incident but Coley meanwhile had passed through Oxford and become curate of Alfington in the parish of Autory St. Mary. His mother was dead, his father now an old man in poor health. A strong sense of filial love and duty had hitherto kept him from the thought of leaving home so long as his father was alive but bishop Selwyn came to see Sir John Paterson and Coley and set the claims of Melanesia before them in such a way that both father and son realized that they must not hesitate to make the needful sacrifice of affection. That sacrifice was soon made. When the bishop sailed again for his far-off Pacific Sea, Coleridge Paterson stood beside him on the deck as his devoted follower and brother missionary. As Paterson knew that his work would largely consist in sailing about among the islands, he applied himself busily throughout the long ocean voyage not only to the task of mastering the native languages under the bishop's tuition but to a careful study under the captain of the art of navigation. He soon became an expert shipmaster so that he was able by and by to navigate the Southern Cross, the little missionary schooner, on her various voyages through dangerous seas. Arriving in New Zealand, he speedily had a taste of the kind of life that was in store for him. His immediate work lay in the college which had been established for the native youths, but he had to be ready just as bishop Selwyn himself was to turn his hand to any kind of duty. In one of his letters he tells how, as the two were superintending the landing of their goods from a vessel by means of carts, the tide being very low, three of the horses got into the water which was rather deep for them and were in danger of being drowned. In a moment the two missionaries had their coats off and their trousers rolled up and had plunged in to the rescue, splashing about in the muddy water in full view of the crowd on the beach. This is your first lesson in mud larking, Coley, remarked the bishop as they emerged at length, wet and dirty, and laughing at each other's appearance. But Paterson's special task was, as he put it himself, to rove about the Melanesian department, and for several years he spent half of his time at sea. Fortunately he was a good sailor, and in every way worthy to be the skipper of the Southern Cross. He took thorough delight in his work, enjoying its romantic aspects, but still more feeling the privilege of carrying the Gospel of Christ to men and women who had never heard it before, and who needed it very sadly. On his early cruises he was accompanied by the bishop, and their most frequent method of landing at any island to which they came was to plunge into the sea in light suits which they wore for the purpose, and make for the crowd of armed natives who were sure to be standing on the beach. Sometimes they were in danger, but firmness and kindness and tact carried them through, and in not a few cases they were able to persuade a chief to allow his son, or some other promising youth, to return with them to New Zealand to join the other young men who were receiving at the college the elements of a Christian education. So friendly was their reception for the most part, that Paterson was inclined to scoff at the notion of describing these gentle looking people as savages at all. Savages are all Fridays, he wrote, if you know how to treat them, but at times he was inclined to carry his confidence in them too far, and it was well for him in those early days that he had the bishop at hand, who had learned by experience the need for perpetual caution. For there were plenty of real savages in Melanesia, and now and then there came sharp reminders of the fact. At one island, where they were received with every sign of friendliness and conducted to the chief's long hut, they saw hanging from the roof a row of human skulls, some of them black with soot, others so white that it was evident they had been quite lately added to the collection. In another place, while passing through some bush, they came upon the remains of human bodies, relics of a recent cannibal feast. Occasionally too, as they swam away from what had seemed to be a friendly crowd, an arrow or two whizzed past their heads, showing that they had left some ill-disposed persons behind them. One island that they visited in safety they knew to have been the scene some time before of a deed of blood of which the crew of a British vessel were the victims. Their ship had struck upon the reef, and when they got ashore the natives killed the whole ship's company of them, nineteen in all. Ten of these the cannibals ate on the spot, the remaining nine they sent away as presents to their friends. A voyage over, and the chief fruits of the crews gathered together, in the persons of a number of bright lads who had been persuaded to become scholars, Paterson would settle down for some months to play another role, that of a college tutor, but under circumstances very different from any that the name is apt to suggest. He had to teach his pupils everything, not only reading, writing, arithmetic, and the elements of Christian truth, but how to sweep their rooms and make their beds, how to print and weave and saw and build. Lessons in school over, his old proficiency at cricket became useful once more, and the former captain of the Eaton Eleven might be seen patiently coaching his young barbarians until they caught something of the English skill and enthusiasm in the great English game. At length, after six years of strenuous apprenticeship to the work of a pioneer missionary in the Pacific, there came a great change in Coleridge Paterson's position. Bishop Selwyn had long been convinced of the necessity of forming Melanesia into a separate diocese, and had come to recognize not less clearly the preeminent fitness of Mr. Paterson to occupy the new sea. The representations he made to the home authorities on this subject were successful, and in 1861 Coleridge Paterson became Bishop of Melanesia at the early age of thirty-three. His elevation made little difference, however, either in the general character of his work or in his manner of doing it. He cruised about among the islands as before, dressed commonly in an old flannel shirt and trousers, somewhat the worse for wear, a handy costume for one who had constantly to do a good deal of swimming and waiting. His voyages as Bishop, at the same time, were on a wider scale than any he had attempted formerly, for he felt his larger responsibilities and tried to reach even those islands which had hitherto been regarded as inaccessible. Several times he had very narrow escapes. Once in particular, when he had gone ashore at a place where the natives made a show of friendship, he discovered from their conversation and gestures as soon as they had him in their power that it was their deliberate intention to kill him. The reason, he found afterwards, was that one of their friends had been murdered by a white traitor, and with a savage sense of justice they felt that they were entitled to this white man's life. The bishop knew that humanly speaking he had no chance of mercy, but he begged permission to be allowed to pray, and kneeling down he committed his soul to God. The natives did not understand a single word that he uttered, but the look they saw in his face as he knelt so impressed and overawed them that they said to one another, he does not look like a murderer, and as soon as he was done, with many signs of courtesy they conducted him back to the beach again and bade him farewell. On another occasion, in connection with a later cruise, a sad incident took place at the island of Santa Cruz. The natives here showed no signs of opposition when he landed, but after he had returned to his boat and pushed off, a shower of arrows was discharged from the beach. The bishop, who was at the stern, unshipped the rudder and held it up as a shield to try to ward off the deadly shafts. In spite of his efforts, three of the party, all of them Christian young men, were transfixed. Fortunately the arrows were not poisoned, as Melanesian arrows often were, but Paterson had great difficulty in extracting them. In one case he found it quite impossible to draw out the arrowhead from a man's wrist, and was obliged to pull it from the other side right through his arm. This poor fellow took lockjaw and died in a few days after dreadful agonies of pain. For ten strenuous years after his consecration as bishop, Paterson sailed to and fro among the Melanesian islands. Sometimes through illness and weakness brought on by the constant strain, he was in great suffering, but he never ceased to rejoice in his work. At last, however, a dark shadow fell across his path, a shadow which deepened to the awful tragedy of his death. The traders of the Pacific had discovered that it was more remunerative to kidnap natives, clap them under hatches, and sail with them as virtual slaves to the plantations of Queensland or Fiji, than to busy themselves in collecting sandalwood or cobra for the legitimate market. Not a few of them had entered into this unscrupulous and vile traffic, which soon produced an unpleasant change all over the islands in the attitude of the natives to white men. Worse still, some of these kidnappers used Paterson's name as a decoy. Coming to an island where he was known as trusted, they would tell the people that the bishop was on board and wanted to see them. In some cases they even went to the length of making an effigy of him, dressed in a black coat and holding a Bible in his hands, and this they placed in a position where it could be seen by those ashore. When the unsuspecting blacks came off in their canoes and climbed on board, they were quickly tumbled down into the hold among the other miserable wretches who were imprisoned there. These were the malign influences which led to the murder of Bishop Paterson. He is the martyr of Melanesia, but it was the kidnapping traders more than the ill-used natives who were responsible for his death. It was on a day of September 1871 that the Southern Cross stood off the coral reef of the island of Nukapu. Several canoes were seen cruising about, apparently in a state of some excitement. The bishop entered the schooner's boat and pulled towards the reef, but the tide was too low for the boat to get across. At this juncture, two natives approached and proposed to take the bishop into their light canoe and paddle him over the reef to the shore. He at once consented. The boat's crew saw him land safely on the beach, but after that lost sight of him. For about half an hour the boat had been lying too and waiting, when from several canoes which had gradually been drawing near a shower of arrows fell upon the crew. They pulled back immediately in great haste and were soon out of range, but not till three persons had been struck with poisoned arrows, two of whom, the Reverend Joseph Atkins and a Christian native, subsequently died. When the tide rose high enough to make it possible for the boat to cross the barrier reef, it was dispatched from the schooner in the hope of getting some intelligence about the bishop. As the men pulled across the lagoon towards the shore two canoes put off to meet them. One cast off the other and went back, the one which was left drifting towards them as they approached. As it came near they noticed what looked like a bundle lying in the bottom, and when they drew alongside they saw that this was the dead bishop, lying there with a calm smile on his upturned face. His body was wrapped in a native mat, and over his breast there lay a leaf of the coconut palm, with five knots tied in the long sprays. What those mysterious knots meant was partly explained when the mat was unwrapped and five deadly wounds inflicted with club, spear, and arrows were discovered on the body. It was afterwards learned that five Nukapu natives had been stolen by the kidnappers. The islanders doubtless looked upon them as having been murdered, and so their nearest relatives, exercising the old tribal rite of exacting blood for blood, had stained their weapons one by one in the blood of the white bishop, who was thus called upon to lay down his life for the sins of his own unworthy fellow countrymen. The people of Nukapu have long since repented of their crime. On the spot where the bishop fell there now stands, by their own desire, a simple but impressive cross with this inscription upon it, in memory of John Coleridge Patterson, D.D., Missionary Bishop, whose life was here taken by men for whom he would gladly have given it. Missionary Heroism by John Chisholm Lambert Chapter 20 One of the Unreturning Brave There are persons of a romantic turn who sometimes lament the rapidity and thoroughness with which the work of civilization is being carried on. Steamships, they remind us, now ply up and down the waters of the great lakes of Central Africa, and right through the heart of the dark continent a railway is being steadily pushed on. There are places to which a generation ago it would have taken much more than a year to send a message from London or Edinburgh, whereas now to those same places a message can be sent and an answer received in less than 12 hours. The North Pole, we have seen it affirmed, is now almost the only place left to be discovered on the face of the globe, so that whenever Dr. Nansen or Lieutenant Perry or some other Arctic hero has succeeded in realizing his ambition, whether by dog sledge or airship or submarine, it will be necessary for would-be explorers to sit down, like Alexander the Great, and weep because there are no more worlds to conquer. But the Earth is by no means so tame and familiar a planet as these persons imagine. It is only want of knowledge that will make us speak as if hardly any part of the globe still remains unknown. In Asia and Africa, in South America and Australia, there are still large tracts of territory which the foot of civilized man has never yet trod, and there is an island in the southern seas which, if judged by its size, would have to be described as the most important island in the world, and yet, of all the world's larger islands, it is precisely the one regarding which our knowledge is most incomplete. Papua, or New Guinea, the island to which we refer, lies to the northeast of the Australian continent, separated from it by the Torres Straits, only eighty miles across. In shape, it resembles one of the huge saurian reptiles of a prehistoric era, and if we may carry out this comparison in describing its size, it may be added that from head to tail it measures fourteen hundred ninety miles in length, while it is four hundred thirty miles in breadth across the thickest part of its body. Covering as it does an area of considerably more than three hundred thousand square miles, it is quite six times the size of England. Its chief river, the Fly, is tidal at a distance of one hundred thirty miles from the sea, and has been navigated by steamer for over six hundred miles of its course. The island can boast of a mighty range of mountains quite worthy to be compared to the Alps, the loftiest peak, indeed, rising nearer to the sky than the white dome of Mont Blanc. Of the people of this great island, however, hardly anything was known thirty years ago, except that they were war-like cannibals, whose only regular trade was to barter Sago for earthenware pots in which to cook man. To Port Moresby, on the southeast coast of this mysterious and dreaded land, there came in eighteen seventy-six James Chalmers, or Tamate, an agent of the London Missionary Society. Combining, as he did in a very unusual degree, the qualities of missionary and explorer, he soon greatly increased our knowledge of the geography of New Guinea, and of the superstitions, habits, and social customs of its various and widely differing tribes. Chalmers was no inexperienced Tyro of the South Seas when he first arrived at Port Moresby to enter upon that career of constant adventure by land and sea, on the rivers and in the forests, with Papawins' savages or with the Papawins' surf, in which the next twenty-five years of his life were to be spent. He had already been shipwrecked on a coral reef in the John Williams, the London Missionary Society's vessel, named after that splendid hero of Polynesia, whose true successor Chalmers himself became. He had gone with his young wife on a voyage of two thousand miles in the brig of Bully Hayes, the notorious pirate of the Pacific, and had so fascinated that ferocious nineteenth-century buccaneer that he behaved to his unwanted passengers like a perfect gentleman. He had spent ten years on Raratanga, among the former cannibals of that beautiful coral island. It was from the Raratangans that he got the name Tamate, which stuck to him for the rest of his life, though it was nothing else than the result of an ineffectual native attempt to pronounce the Scottish name of Chalmers. In Raratanga, Tamate had gained much valuable experience, but the restless spirit of the pioneer was in his blood, and it was a joyful day for him when word came from London that he was to proceed to New Guinea, to enter upon what he felt from the first to be the true work of his life. The people of New Guinea are sprung from various original stocks, and are broken up besides into numerous isolated tribes which differ greatly from one another in color, feature, and language, but Chalmers found that, in addition to this, every village formed a community by itself, living at enmity with its neighbors and in constant suspicion of them. The best proof of this was afforded by the construction of the houses, built as they invariably were with a view to protection against sudden attack. Along the coast marine villages were common, Port Moresby itself being an example. The houses in this case were counterparts of the lake dwellings of primitive man in European countries, being erected on tall piles driven into the sea bottom at such a distance from the shore that a small steamer was able to thread its way between the houses and even to anchor safely in the main street. Inland villages, similarly, were built on poles which projected not less than ten feet above the ground, accessed to the platform on which a house stood being obtained by means of a ladder. Among the hill tribes again, tree dwellings were most common, these being particularly inaccessible and thus most easy to defend. On his first arrival at Port Moresby, Chalmers took a long walk inland till he was about eleven hundred feet above sea level and found houses built not only on the summit of a mountain ridge, but on the tops of the very highest trees that were growing there. Tamate at once set himself to acquire some knowledge of his vast diocese and to win the confidence of the natives. He had all the qualities for the work that lay before him. He could navigate a whale boat through the heavy surf which crashes along the level coasts as if bred to the job, and at tramping through the forests or climbing the mountains no one could beat him, though he confesses to sometimes having sore feet, and expresses the wicked wish that shoemakers could be compelled to wear the boots they send out to missionaries. As for the natives, he won them by a kind of personal fascination he had which was felt by everyone who met him, man eating savage or missionary loving old lady, a piratical outlaw like Bully Hayes, or a literary dreamer and critic like Robert Louis Stevenson, unarmed but fearless, Tamate never hesitated to walk right into the midst of a crowd of armed and threatening cannibals. For the most part he won their friendship at the first meeting without difficulty, though every now and then he came across some troublesome customers and had a narrow escape with his life. One of Chalmer's earliest expeditions was a cruise along the south coast from east to west, in the course of which he visited 105 villages, 90 of which had never seen a white man before. Being new to the country, he met with much to surprise or amuse him. The Papuans are passionately fond of pigs, especially when roasted, but it astonished their visitor to find that they preserved the skulls of dead pigs in their houses along with those of their departed relatives, and still more to see a woman nursing her baby at one breast and a young pig at the other. One day when he had taken his seat in the middle of a native house, right in front of the fire, and was busy tracing his course on a chart, he began to wonder how it was that strange dark drops kept falling all around him and sometimes on the chart itself, when he looked up the reason became apparent. A recently deceased grandmother had been made up into a bulky parcel and hung from the roof right above the fire, with a view to being thoroughly smoked and dried. Tamate's shout of disgust brought in the owner of the house, who hastily took down his late grandmother and walked off with her on his shoulder to deposit her elsewhere until the departure of this too fastidious traveller. But if Chalmers was sometimes astonished at first by the Papuans and their ways, the astonishment was by no means altogether upon his side. His white skin was a source of perpetual wonder, especially if he had occasion to roll up his sleeves or change his shirt, and so exposed parts of his body that were not so bronzed as his cheeks by the sea air and the burning sun. Great too was the perplexity caused by his combination of a white face with black and toeless feet, perplexity which suddenly turned into horror if he lifted his legs and pulled off his boots. These, however, were among the lighter faces of his experiences as a pioneer, until he became known, along many a league of coast and in the deep recesses of the forest, as the best friend of the Papuan people, Tamate had constantly to face death in the grimmest forms and with a vision of the cannibal cooking pot lying ever in the background. Here is a hair-breadth escape which looks thrilling enough as we read it in his Adventures in New Guinea, though it does not seem half so dramatic on the printed page as it did when the present writer heard Tamate relate it himself, a big, stout, wildish-looking man, as R. L. Stevenson described him, with big bold black eyes which glowed and flashed as he told his story and suited the action to the word. On one of his coasting voyages in the Ellen Gowan, a little steamer that belonged to the mission, he came to a bay in which he had never been before. He put off to the shore as soon as possible, but the moment his boat touched the beach he was surrounded by a threatening crowd of natives, every one of them armed with club or spear. The savages absolutely forbade him to land, but he sprang a shore notwithstanding, followed by the mate of the Ellen Gowan, a fine, daring fellow with something of Tamate's own power of feeling least fear where most danger seemed to be. Up the long sea beach the two men walked, accompanied by the hostile crowd, till they came to what was evidently the house of the village chief. The old man sat in solemn dignity on the raised platform in front of his house and did not condescend to take the least notice of his visitors. Climbing up to the platform, Tamate laid down some presents he had brought, but the surly magnet flung them back in his face. It now became apparent that a row was brewing, for the crowd took its cue from the chief and was beginning to jostle rudely and to indulge in bursts of brutal laughter. Turning to the mate who stood a little way behind, Tamate asked him in English how things looked. Bad sir, he replied, the bush is full of natives, and there are arms everywhere. They have stolen all my beads and hoop iron. It looks like mischief. Even Chalmers now felt that it was time to retire. Gould, said he to the mate, I think we had better get away from here, keep eyes all round and let us make quietly for the beach. Chalmers used to describe the next quarter of an hour as one of the most uncomfortable in his life. The crowd followed, growling savagely, and one man with a large stone-headed club kept walking just behind the missionary and most unpleasantly near. Had I that club in my hand, thought Tamate, I should feel a little more comfortable. A few steps more and he said to himself, I must have that club or that club will have me. Wheeling suddenly round, he drew out of his satchel a large piece of hoop iron, a perfect treasure to a native, and presented it to the savage. The man's eyes glistened as if he had seen a bar of gold, and he stretched out his hand to grasp the prize. In a moment Tamate seized the man's club, wrenched it out of his hand, and brandishing it in the air as if he meant to use it, headed the procession and marched safely down to the boat. Long afterwards, when these natives became his friends, they told him that he looked bad at the moment when he took possession of the club, and Chalmers confesses that that was just how he felt. As we have indicated already, the traveller in New Guinea soon finds that the dangers of the Pacific surf are hardly less than those of the shore or the forest, from the time when as a boy he had learned to swim and row and steer through the often stormy waters of the Highland Lock behind which he was born, Tamate had been passionately fond of the sea, and it was his constant habit to make trips of exploration along the New Guinea coast in a whale boat, acting as his own skipper. On the southern coast at certain seasons of the year, huge rollers sweep in continually from the Papawin Gulf and burst upon the beach with a noise like thunder, a strong nerve and a cool judgment as well as a stout arm at the steering ore are required if a landing is to be affected in safety and even to the finest swimmer to be overturned in the midst of the surf may mean a death either from drowning or by the teeth of swarming crocodiles or by being pounded to jelly on the rocks. In the riding of the surges, Tamate was a master, but though he performed the feet successfully hundreds of times, he once or twice came to grief and had the narrowest escape with his life. In one of his letters he tells of an exciting experience he had in company with a Mr. Romaly, a government agent whom he had taken with him in his whale boat. We were very deeply laden. On nearing the bar it did not seem to me as very dangerous so we stood on. The first bar sea sped us on, the second one caught us, we shipped water, the steer ore got jammed, the boat swung and went over. It was deep and the seas heavy and for a short time it seemed some of us must go. It is a terrible place for crocodiles, but I suppose so many of us frightened them. The smashing in the surf was enough to kill. The boat's crew of native students did nobly, we got ashore. I feared at one time Romaly was drowning. I felt somewhat exhausted myself. I fancy Romaly must have been struck with an oar. The boys got the boat in after a good hour's hard work. I got three times on to the boat's keel and each time was swept away. At last got an oar and assisted by a native I got to a sand bank, resting a little, then ashore. A fire was lighted, around which we all gathered, when one of the students engaged in prayer and with full hearts we all joined him in thanksgiving. During the night things were washed ashore and amongst them my swag. They spent all that night on the beach, gathered round a fire. Sunday followed. It is not strange to find Chalmers remarking, we all felt sore and unfit for much exertion. But it is characteristic that he adds that he had two services that day. The reverence which Chalmers makes in the foregoing passage to his having the company of a government agent on this unlucky trip makes it suitable to mention at this point that in 1884 the British flag was formally hoisted at Port Moresby and the whole of southeastern New Guinea declared to be a British protectorate. While in 1886 this step was followed by the proclamation of Queen Victoria's sovereignty. Of these actions of his government Chalmers fully approved and his services to the British officials then and afterwards were of the most valuable kind. No one else knew the country as he did. No one was so familiar with the habits of the people, their languages, and their modes of thought. His work for the empire has received the most appreciative notice from various quarters. In a letter to the Times, written just after the news of Chalmers death had reached this country, Admiral Bridge says, speaking of the assistance rendered him by Chalmers in 1884 and five, his vigilance, cheeriness, readiness of resource, and extraordinary influence over the native savages made his help quite invaluable. I can honestly say that I do not know how I should have got on without him. He had an equal power of winning the confidence of savages quite unused to strangers and the respect and even love of white seamen. It is difficult to do justice in writing to the character of this really great Englishman. One had only to know and live with him in out-of-the-way lands to be convinced that he was endowed with the splendid characteristics which distinguished our most eminent explorers and pioneers. Admiral Bridge was right in describing Chalmers as essentially an explorer and pioneer. In many respects he was a man cast in Livingston's mold and was never more happy than when pushing his way into regions where the foot of a white man had never trod before. Not only did he explore by whale boat or steam launch all the coasts and bays of southern Papua, but he was the first white man to walk right across New Guinea to its eastern end, and he penetrated farther up the difficult Fly River than the most adventurous travelers had ever been before. And yet he never forgot that his work was primarily that of a Christian teacher and he never shrank from the little monotonies that were involved. Even when his position became virtually that of a missionary bishop, with duties of superintendents not only over the Great Fly River Delta, but over the scattered islands of the Torres Straits, he cheerfully undertook day by day the duties of an elementary schoolmaster. He taught the ABC to young and old, though it should be added that he had the shrewdness to take advantage of the Papuan love of song and music by teaching the people to sing it to the tune of Old Lang Zine, one who visited him when he had made his home in the midst of the mangrove swamps of the Fly River, found him at daybreak in a rudely constructed schoolhouse which he had built on the sand just above High Watermark. He had a class which was learning English, and with a small bamboo stick for a baton was leading his scholars as they sang, first, God Save the Queen, and then, All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name. I don't think, this friend writes, that Chalmers ever appeared quite so great a man as when I saw him thus teaching that group of Fly River children. Thus for five and twenty years, Tamate of the big warm heart went out and in among the tribes of New Guinea, until his Polynesian name had become a household word alike in the sea dwellings of the shore, the tree houses of the hills, and the great dubus or barracks in which in the larger communities the people heard together by the hundred. But the day came when Tamate was to go out no more. Writing from Velima to his mother on November 1890, Robert Louis Stevenson said of the friend whom he loved and admired so greatly, I have a cultist for Tamate. He is a man nobody can see and not love. He has plenty of faults like the rest of us, but he's as big as a church. And he expresses the hope that he shall meet Tamate once more before he disappears up the Fly River, perhaps to be one of the unreturning brave. The words were almost prophetic. Possibly they gave voice to a dim presentiment of which Chalmers himself was sometimes conscious, and of which he may have spoken to his friend. It was only a few months after, in the beginning of April 1901, that Tamate set out to visit the district around Cape Blackwood on the eastern side of the Fly River Delta, which was inhabited by a ferocious tribe of savages. He knew that these people were both skull hunters and cannibals, and for that very reason he had long been eager to get a footing among them. He was accompanied on this occasion by the Reverend Oliver Tompkins, a young and promising colleague, lately arrived from England. At a place called Risk Point, a swarm of natives, armed with bows and arrows, clubs, knives, and spears, came off in their canoes and took forcible possession of the knee-way, the little mission vessel. With the view of inducing them to leave, Tamate decided to go ashore. He did everything he could to persuade Mr. Tompkins to remain on board, possibly because he anticipated trouble. Mr. Tompkins, however, refused to allow his leader to go alone, and so the two went off together. Those on board never saw them again, either in life or in death. The captain of the knee-way waited for two days, sailing about the coast and keeping a sharp look out, but no trace could be seen either of the mission party or their boat, seeing now that a tragedy must have taken place. He sailed with all speed to Daru and reported the matter to the British governor. At once the governor started in person, accompanied by a sufficient force, in order to find out exactly what had taken place and to inflict punishment if necessary. From a native who was captured he secured the following tale, which was afterwards corroborated in all particulars. When the two white men got ashore, they entered the long dubu of the village, their native boys being induced to enter also by the promise of something to eat. No sooner was the whole party within than the signal was given for a general massacre. The first to be killed were the two missionaries, who were knocked simultaneously on the head from behind with stone clubs. Both fell senseless at the first blow, and their heads were immediately cut off. Their followers were then similarly killed and beheaded, though one of them, a powerful man, managed to snatch a club from one of his assailants and kill another at a blow, before being himself felled. The heads were distributed as trophies among the murderers. The bodies were cut up and handed over to the women to cook. They were cooked at once, the flesh being mixed with sago, and were eaten the same day. It was a painful and tragic end to the life of one who, by the testimony of Sir William McGregor, Governor of New Guinea for seven years, has justly been called the Apostle of the Papuan Gulf, and yet how much truth there is in the Governor's words in his official report of the massacre and of the steps he felt obliged to take for the punishment of the perpetrators. I am not alone in the opinion that Mr. Chalmers has won the death he would have wished for of all others, in New Guinea and for New Guinea.