’You will want to hear a word about myself.  I am much better, partly I confess owing to the warmth of the climate, which certainly agrees with me.  I may feel less well as we draw by-and-by to the south once more.

’I can’t take strong exercise, and that is a privation.  It did me good, and I feel the want of it; but I am much better than I was a year or ten months ago, and I do my work very fairly, and get about better than I expected.  Remember me kindly to Mrs. Atkin and Mary, and believe me to be

’Your very sincere Friend,

‘J.  C. Patteson.’

Mr. Brooke and Edward Wogale had had a far more trying sojourn at Florida.

’Wogale suffered much from his eyes; and the labour ships were frequently on the coast—­all the three varieties:  the fairly conducted one with a Government agent on board; the “Snatch-snatch,” which only inveigled, but did not kill without necessity; and the “Kill-kill,” which absolutely came head-hunting.  It was a dreary eleven weeks.

’On July 11, a “Sydney vessel,” as the natives called it, was on the west of the island, and nine natives were reported to Mr Brooke as having been killed, and with so much evidence that he had no doubt on the subject.

’On the 13th Takua came to him to say the “Kill-kill” vessel had anchored four miles off.  What was he to do?

’"How was it you and Bisope came first, and then these slaughterers?  Do you send them?”

’Mr. Brooke advised them to remain on shore; but if the strangers landed and wanted to kill or burn them, to fight for their lives.  “Your words are the words of a chief,” said Takua.

’This ship, however, sailed away; but on August 13 another came, much like the “Southern Cross,” and canoes went out to her, in one of them Dudley Lankona.  These returned safely, but without selling their fruit; and Dudley related that the men said, “Bishop and Brooke were bad, but they themselves were good, and had pipes and tobacco for those who would go with them.”

’These, however, went away without doing them harm, only warning them that another vessel which was becalmed near at hand was a “killer,” and the people were so uneasy about her that Mr. Brooke went on board, and was taken by the captain for a maker of cocoa-nut oil.  He was a Scotchman, from Tanna, where he had settled, and was in search of labourers; a good-natured friendly kind of person on the whole, though regarding natives as creatures for capture.

’"If I get a chance to carry a lot of them off,” he said, “I’ll do it; but killing is not my creed.”

’Mr. Brooke hinted that the natives might attack him, and he pointed to six muskets.  “That’s only a few of them.  Let them come.  We’ll give it them pretty strong.”

’He was rather taken aback when he found that he was talking to a clergyman.  “Well, wherever you go nowadays there’s missionaries.  Who would have thought you’d got so far down?”