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Two young men were taken from hence, and more would have gone, but it was not thought well to take married men. The isle of Mara or Malanta had a very shy population, who seemed to live inland, having probably been molested by the warlike Gera men.
'After this there was a good deal of bad weather; but all the lads were restored to their islands, including Aroana, the young Malanta chief, who had begun by a fit of frenzy, but had since behaved well; and who left his English friends with a promise to do all in his power to tame his people and cure them of cannibalism. Then came some foul winds and hot exhausting weather.
'And then San Cristoval, sixty miles long, with its villages and languages, and Malanta over eighty miles long, and Guadalcanar, seventy! It is a silly thought or a vain, human wish, but I feel as if I longed to be in fifty or a hundred places at once. But God will send qualified men in good time.
He soon recovered, and the cooler latitudes had a beneficial effect on him, but there was reason to fear that in Malanta the restraint might be regarded as an outrage on the person of a chief. The voyage safely ended on the night of the 16th of November. Here is part of a letter to Mr. Edward Coleridge, written immediately after reading the letters that had been waiting in Auckland:
Sixty-two scholars were the present freight, including nine little girls, between eight and twelve, mostly betrothed to old pupils. At Malanta, a new village called Saa was visited. The 'harbour' was a wall of coral, with the surf breaking upon it, but a large canoe showed the only accessible place, and this was exposed to the whole swell of the Pacific. 'The natives, writes Mr.
Atkin's Malanta godson and pupil, wrote afterwards, 'Joe said to me and Sapi, "We are going to look for the Bishop, are you two afraid?" "No, why should I be afraid?" "Very well, you two go and get food for yourselves, and bring a beaker full of water for us all, for we shall have to lie on our oars a long time to-day." The others who pulled the boat were Charles Sapinamba, a sailor, and Mr.
Joseph Wate, the little Malanta boy, was always viewed by the Atkin family as a kind of child, and kept up a correspondence with his godfather's sister, Mother Mary as he called her. On the same day the Bishop wrote to Judge Pohlman:
The first week in July, with Wadrokala, Mark, and two Malanta men, Mr. Patteson set forth in the boat that had been left with him, for an expedition among the other islands, beginning with Saddle Island, or Valua, which was the proper name.
The chiefs, having a great idea of their own importance, and being used to be treated like something sacred, and never opposed, were the most difficult people to deal with, and in the present voyage there was a time of great anxiety respecting a young chief named Aroana, from the great isle of Malanta.
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