Faithful Unto Death 
BisHop PattTeson’s last voyage was begun April 27, 1871. 
All through the New Hebrides, wherever the missionaries 
called, they found traces of “blackbirding” (the kidnaping 
of natives for plantation work in other lands), and instead 
of the mission ship now being welcomed as it formerly had 
been, it was everywhere received with distrust and suspicion. 
In the month of August he sailed from the Banks group for 
the Solomon Islands. After calling at the island of Florida 
to pick up Mr. Brooke, a fellow missionary who had been 
residing on the island for some time, he sailed to other parts 
of the group, touching at Savo and Ysabel, and lastly at 
Santa Cruz. 
On September 11 they arrived at some small islands form- 
ing what is known as the Swallow group of the Santa Cruz 
archipelago. The bishop had determined not to land at Santa 
Cruz until he had learned whether any slave traffic had been 
carried on there. With this in view he made for the small 
island of Nukapu, where he was in the habit of calling to 
engage an interpreter for Santa Cruz, as its inhabitants un- 
derstood Maori, and also the language spoken by the people 
of Santa Cruz. 
“Observing some canoes lying off the island, the bishop, 
Mr. Atken, and three Melanesians put off in the boat to 
speak to them. The people not coming off themselves to the 
vessel, was noticed as an unusual circumstance. In previous 
vears they had always come out some miles to meet the 
bishop, and had clambered on board without the least fear. 
On reaching the canoes, and finding that the tide was not 
high enough to allow the boat to cross the reef, on the other 
side of which the canoes were lying, the bishop went into 
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