At Ambrym there was a schooner with Mr. Thurston on board, and fifty-five natives for Fiji.  On the north coast was the ‘Isabella,’ with twenty-five for Queensland.  The master gave Captain Jacob his credentials to show to the Bishop, and said the Bishop might come on board and talk to the people, so as to be convinced they came willingly, but weighed anchor immediately after, and gave no opportunity; and one man who stood on the rail calling out ’Pishopa, Pishopa,’ was dragged back.

Mr. Bice was picked up again on the 17th, having been unmolested during his visit; but two of the ‘Lepers,’ who had been at Espiritu Santo, had brought back a fearful story that a small two-masted vessel had there been mastered by the natives, and the crew killed and eaten in revenge for the slaughter of some men of their own by another ship’s company some time back.

On the voyage he wrote to the Bishop of Lichfield:—­

’Off Tariko.  Sloop:  July 8, 1871.

’My dear Bishop,—­Towards the end of April I left Norfolk Island, and after a six days’ passage reached Mota.  I called at Ambrym (dropping three boys) at three places; at Whitsuntide; at Leper’s Island, dropping seven boys; Aurora, two places; Santa Maria, where I left B——­, and so to Mota on the day before Ascension Day, and sent the vessel back at once to Norfolk Island for the Solomon Island scholars.  All our Aroa and Matlavo party wished to spend Ascension Day with us; and after Holy Communion they went across with Commodore William Pasvorang in a good whale boat, which I brought down on the deck of the schooner, and which Willy looks after at Aroa.  We want it for keeping up a visitation of the group.

’Bice, ordained Priest last Christmas, was with me.  We found George and all well, George very steady and much respected.  Charles Woleg, Benjamin Vassil and James Neropa, all going on well.  The wives have done less than I hoped; true, they all had children to look after, yet they might have done more with the women. [Then as before about the movement.]

’After a week I went off in the boat, leaving Bice at Kohimarama, the Mota station.  I went to B——­ first at the north-east part of the island; back to Tarasagi (north-east point); sailed round to Lakona, our old Cock Sparrow Point, where B——­ and I selected one or two boys to stay with him at Tarasagi.  Thence we sailed to Avreas Bay, the great bay of Vanua Lava, B——­ going back to Tarasagi by land.  Heavy sea and rain; reached land in the dark 8 P.M., thankful to be safe on shore.

’On to Aroa, where I spent two days; Willie and Edwin doing what they can.  Twenty children at school; but the island is almost depopulated, some seven hundred gone to Brisbane and Fiji.  I did not go to Uvaparapara; the weather was bad, I was not well, and I expected the “Southern Cross” from Norfolk Island.  Next day, after just a week’s trip in the boat, I got to Mota; and the next day the “Southern Cross” arrived with Joe Atkin and Brooke and some twenty-four Solomon Islanders, many of them pressing to stay at Norfolk Island, where about eighty scholars in all are under the charge of Codrington, Palmer, and Jackson.