214 “YACHTING IN MELANESIA. 
minds than to cause them to help through being commanded to do 
so; but this, of course, presupposes the working of a good deal of 
spiritual force inthe mind of the natives, and one has to remember that 
a bishop or a person in high authority will often get attention shown 
him when an ordinary person may easily be passed over. A judicious 
mingling of the power of example and of the assertion of authority 
would seem to meet the case. If anything, the Mission, in following the 
practice of its great leaders, has somewhat failed to exercise the rights 
of its position, in trusting that the natives would themselves see and 
realize their duty by their spiritual fathers. 
Before Tilly’s time the Bishop used to see to all the provisioning of 
the ship for the voyages, hired the seamen, kept all the accounts, and 
frequently was responsible for the navigation. O tempora! O mores! 
We latter-day missionaries, when clearing from Norfolk Island, so far 
from attending to navigation, cared little in our agony which way the 
ship’s head was pointed. What lively times we used to have: a ship 
full of natives, boys and girls, the decks cumbered with livestock, the 
hold, the cabins, the natives’ quarters filled with stores and with lug- 
gage. ‘There was often no available space for the boys to lie down in; 
the tween decks was littered up with boxes, tables, furniture, packages, 
all piled one on top of the other. Lucky was the boy who could curl up 
on the underside of a table stowed upside down. Some people seem 
to fancy that Melanesians never suffer from the same ailments that 
Europeans do, are never seasick, never get malaria, etc. There is an 
equally prevalent belief that natives do not mind the sun’s rays at sea, 
and also that they have no objection to getting wet with salt water, 
whereas when a spray comes on board they instinctively try to dodge it; 
possibly this is owing to their objection to having the salt dry on the 
bare skin; and also they will always congregate when possible under 
the shadow of the sail to avoid the sun. In rain natives start shivering 
and their teeth begin to chatter long before a white man shows any 
signs of feeling cold. 
Between Norfolk Island and the tropic one generally expected to 
have a bad time on the Southern Cross. The weather was often very 
rough, with a cross sea running, and then everything started rolling 
about. ‘The 8-pound tins of meat stored in the lockers in the cabin 
would often be shot violently from one side to the other; the book- 
case door would threaten to break loose from its hinges, tumblers fell 
off the stand and were broken to pieces, lamps and doors swung wildly 
about with the rolling of the vessel, an occasional wave would dash 
into the side cabins, and to shut the doors meant suffocation. The 
bunks were arranged on both sides of the cabin, and where the ship 
was over full some luckless wight had to camp on the settee, and his 
experiences at night in a gale were somewhat exciting. As often as not 
