’May 8th.—­All going on pretty well, thank God.  Mary is weak, but I think better; did not wander last night.  Clement, with strong typhoid symptoms, yet, at all events, not worse.  But he is a very powerful, thickset fellow, not a good subject for fever.  I feel that I am beginning to recover my interest in things in general, books, &c.  For two months I was entirely occupied with hospital work, and with visiting daily the sick Pitcairners, and I was weary and somewhat worn out.  Now I am better in mind and body; some spring in me again.  This may be to fit me for more trials in store; but I think that the sunshine has come again.’

There were, however, two more deaths—­the twins of Mwerlau.  Clement died on the 24th of May; the other brother, Richard, followed him a fortnight later.  They were about seventeen, strong and thick-set; Clement had made considerable progress during his two years of training, and had been a Communicant since Christmas.  Before passing to the other topics with which, as the Bishop said, he could again be occupied, here is Mr. Codrington’s account of this period of trouble:—­

’A great break in the first year was caused by the visitation of typhus fever in the earlier part of 1868.  This disease, brought as I always believed by infection from a vessel that touched here, first attacked a Norfolk Islander who did not live in the town.  He was ill in the middle of February, others of the Pitcairn people soon after.  The Bishop began at once to visit the sick very diligently, and continued to visit them throughout, though after a time our own hospital was full.  Our first case was on the llth of March, and our last convalescents did not go out until near the end of June.  For some time there was hard work to be done with nursing the sick.  The Bishop had the anxiety and the charge of medically treating the sick.  Mr. Nobbs, as always, was most kind in giving the benefit of his experience, but he was too fully occupied with the care of his own flock to be able to help us much.  It was agreed, as soon as we saw the disease was among us, that the three elder members of the Mission should alone come into communication with the sick.  We kept watch in turns, but the Bishop insisted on taking a double share, i.e., he allowed us only to take regular watches in the night, undertaking the whole of the day’s work, except during the afternoon when he was away with the Pitcairn people.  He seemed quite at home in the hospital, almost always cheerful, always very tender, and generally very decided as to what was to be done.  He was fond of doctoring, read a good deal of medical books, and knew a good deal of medical practice; but the weight of such a responsibility as belonged to the charge of many patients in a fever of this kind was certainly heavy upon him.  The daily visit to the Pitcairn people on foot or on horseback was no doubt a relief, though hard work in itself.  Of the four lads we lost, two, twins, had been some time christened, one was baptized before his death, the first who died had not been long with the Mission.  It is characteristic of Bishop Patteson that I never heard him say a word that I remember of religion to one of the sick.  On such things he would not, unless he was obliged, speak except with the patient alone.