journal, 'practice makes perfect, and we get the habit of landing
among strangers, the knack of managing with signs and gesticulations,
and the feeling of ease and confidence which engenders confidence and
good-will in the others. Quarrels usually arise from both parties
being afraid and suspicious of each other.'

Leper's Isle owes its unpleasant name to its medicinal springs. It
is a particularly beautiful place, containing a population of good
promise. Three landings were made there, and at the fourth place
Patteson jumped ashore on a rock and spent some time in calming the
fears of a party of natives who had been frightened in their canoe by
the boat under sail overtaking them. 'hey fingered bows and arrows,
but only from nervousness,' he says. However, they seem to have
suspected the visitors of designs on their load of fine taro, and it
was some time before the owner would come out and resume it. On all
these isles the plan could as yet only be to learn names and write
them down, so as to enquire for acquaintance next time, either make
presents, or barter them for provisions, discover the class of
language, and invite scholars for another time.

So at Star Island three or four natives said, 'In ten moons you two
come back; very good, then we go with you.' 'I think,' Patteson
tells his sisters, 'you would have liked to have seen me, standing on
a rock, with my two supporters, two fine young men, who will I trust
go with us next time, my arms round their necks, and a fine
background of some thirty or forty dark figures with bows and arrows,
&c., and two or three little rogues, perched on a point of rock above
me, just within reach, asking for fish-hooks.' He says it in all
simplicity, but the picture presupposes some strength of mind in the
sisters who were to appreciate it.