dence in the
missionaries and would give them a hearing. This policy commended itself
to Patteson by its practical efficacy; and though he modified it in
details, he remained all his life a convinced adherent of the principle.
Slow progress through a few pupils, selected when young, and carefully
taught, was worth more than mere numbers, though too often in
Missionary reports success is gauged by figures and statistics.

These cruises furnished the adventurous part of the life. Readers of
Stevenson and Conrad can picture to themselves to-day the colour, the
mystery, and the magic of the South Seas. Patteson, with his reserved
nature and his dread of seeming to throw a false glamour over his
practical duties, wrote but sparingly of such sights; but he was by no
means insensitive to natural beauty and his letters give glimpses of
coral reefs and lagoons, of palms and coco-nut trees, of creepers 100
feet long trailing over lofty crags to the clear water below.

He enjoyed being on board ship, with his books at hand and some leisure
to read them, with the Bishop at his side to counsel him, and generally
some of his pupils to need his help. They had many delightful days when
they received friendly greeting on the islands and found that they were
making real progress among the natives. But the elements of discomfort,
disappointment, and danger were rarely absent for long. For a large part
of each voyage they had some forty or fifty Melanesian boys on board, on
their way to school or returning to their homes. The schooner built for
the purpose was as airy and convenient as it could be made; yet there
was little space for privacy. The natives were constitutionally weak;
and when illness broke out, no trained nurses were at hand and Patteson
would give up his own quarters to the sick and spend hours at their
bedsides. Sometimes they found, on revisiting an island, that their old
scholars had fallen away and that they had to begin again from the
start. Sometimes they had to abstain from landing at all, because the
behaviour of the natives was menacing, or because news had reached the
Mission of some recent quarrel which had roused bitter feeling. The
traditions of the Melanesians inclined them to go on the war-path only
too readily, and both Selwyn and Patteson had an instinctive perception
of the native temperament and its danger.

However lightly Patteson might treat these perils in his letters home,
there was never complete