school in the middle of August 'by a whale being washed ashore over a
barrier reef--not far from me. All the adjacent population turned
out in grass kilts, with knives and tomahawks to hack off chunks of
flesh to be eaten, and of blubber to be boiled into oil; and in the
meantime the neighbourhood was by no means agreeable to anyone
possessing a nose.'

Meanwhile Sarawia, the best of the Banks pupils, had a swelling on
the knee, and required care and treatment, but soon got better.
Medical knowledge, as usual, Patteson felt one of the great needs of
missionary life. Cases of consumption and scrofula were often
brought to him, and terrible abscesses, under which the whole body
wasted away. 'Poor people!' he writes, 'a consumptive hospital looms
in the far perspective of my mind; a necessary accompaniment, I feel
now, of the church and the school in early times. I wish I could
contrive some remedy for the dry food, everything being placed
between leaves and being baked on the ground, losing all the gravy;
and when you get a chicken it is a collection of dry strings. If I
could manage boiling; but there is nothing like a bit of iron for
fire-place on the island, and to keep up the wood fire in the bush
under the saucepan is hard work. I must commence a more practical
study than hitherto of "Robinson Crusoe," and the "Swiss Family."
Why does no missionary put down hints on the subject? My three
months here will teach me more than anything that has happened to me,
and I dare say I shall get together the things I want most when next
I set forth from New Zealand.... I find it a good plan to look on
from short periods to short periods, and always ask, what next? And
at last it brings one to the real answer:--Work as hard as you can,
and that rest which lacks no ingredient of perfect enjoyment and
peace will come at last.'