’All the rest are convalescent.  Oh!  I look at them, to see the loving bright smile again on their poor wan faces.  I don’t mind breaking down now; yet I have experienced no decided reaction; only I am very indolent, like one who, for six weeks, has not had his usual allowance of sleep.  What abundant cause we have for thankfulness!  All the many hours that I spent in that atmosphere, and yet not a whit the worse for it.  What a sight it was!  What scenes of suffering!  There seemed to be no end to it; and yet there was always strength for the immediate work in hand.  Tending twenty-four sick, after hurrying back from burying two dear lads in one grave, or with a body lying in its white sheet in the chapel; and once, after a breathless watch of two hours, while they all slept the sleep of opium, for we dared almost anything to obtain some rest, stealing at dead of night across the room to the figure wrapped so strangely in its blanket, and finding it cold and stiff, while one dying lay close by.  It has been a solemn time indeed.  And now the brightness seems to be coming back.

’I have not yet ceased to think of the probable consequences; but, speaking somewhat hastily, I do not think that this will much retard the work.  I may have to use some extra caution in some places—­e.g., one of the two first lads brought from Ambrym is dead:  one lad, the only one ever brought from the middle of Whitsuntide Island, is dead; I must be careful there.  The other four came from Mota, Matlavo, Vanua Lava (W. side), and Guadalcanar; for the six who died came from six islands.

’One dear lad, Edmund Quintal, sixteen or seventeen years old, was for a while in a critical state.  Fisher Young, a little older, was very unwell for three or four days.  They came from Norfolk Island.

’The last six weeks have been very unhealthy.  We had an unusually hot dry summer—­quite a drought; the wells, for example, were never so tried.  There was also an unusual continuance of north-east winds--our sultry close wind.  And when the dry weather broke up, the rain and damp weather continued for many days.  Great sickness prevailed in Auckland and the country generally.

’The Norfolk Islanders, now four in number—­Edwin Nobbs, Gilbert Christian, Fisher Young, and Edmund Quintal—­have behaved excellently.  Oh, how different I was at their age!  It is pleasant, indeed, to see them so very much improved; they are so industrious, so punctual, so conscientious.  The fact seems to be that they wanted just what I do hope the routine of our life has supplied—­careful supervision, advice, and, when needed, reproof.  They had never had any training at all.

’But there was something better—­religious feeling—­to work on! and the life here has, by God’s blessing, developed the good in them.  I am very hopeful about then now.  Not, mind! that any one of them has a notion of teaching, but they are acquiring habits which will enable them to be good examples in all points of moral conduct to those of the Melanesians who are not already like B——­, &c.  The head work will come by-and-by, I dare say.