’It is most interesting work, though not easy, and much of it will no doubt be altered when we come to know the language thoroughly well.  This island of Nengone (called also Maro and Britannia Island) contains about 6,500 inhabitants, of whom some profess Christianity, while the remainder are still fighting and eating one another, though accessible to white people.

’We hope to have time to see something of the heathen population, though the London Mission Society having re-occupied the island, we do not regularly visit it with the intention of establishing ourselves....  The language is confined to that island.  I call it language, not dialect, for it is, I believe, really distinct from any others we have or have heard of, very soft, like Italian, and capable of expressing accurately minute shades of meaning.  Causative forms, &c., remind us of the oriental structure, one peculiarity (that of the chief’s dialect, or almost language, running parallel to that of common life) I think I have before mentioned.

’In about a month I suppose we shall be off again for three or four months, and we long to get hold of pupils from the Banks Archipelago, Santa Cruz, Espiritu Santo, in which no ground is broken at present.  We visited them last year, but did not get any pupils; lovely islands, very populous, and the natives very bright, intelligent-looking.  But how I long to see again some of my own dear boys, I do so think of them!  It may be that two or three of them may come again to us, and then we may perhaps hope that they may learn enough to be really useful to their own people....  Dear uncle, I should indeed rejoice much to see my dear, dear father and sisters and Jem and all of you if it came in the way of one’s business, but I think, so long as I am well, that the peculiar nature of this work must require the constant presence of one personally known to, and not only officially connected with, the natives.  While I feel very strongly that in many ways intercourse occasionally resumed with the home clergy must be very useful to us, yet if you can understand that there is no one to take one’s place, you see how very unlikely it must be that I can move from this hemisphere.  I say “if you can understand,” for it does seem sad that one should really be in such a position that one’s presence should be of any consequence; but, till it please God that the Bishop shall receive other men for this Mission, there is no other teacher for these lads, and so we must rub on and do the best we can.  Of course I should be most thankful, most happy if, during his lifetime, I once more found myself at home, but I don’t think much nor speculate about it, and I am very happy, as I am well and hearty.  You won’t suspect me of any lessening of strong affection for all that savours of home.  I think that I know every face in Alfington and in Feniton, and very many in Ottery as of old; I believe I think of all with increasing affection, but while I wonder at it, I must also confess that I can and do live happy day after day without enjoying the sight of those dear faces.