It was on August 15 that the first disaster at these islands took place.  Not till the 27th could the Bishop—­on his sister Fanny’s birthday—­begin a letter to her, cheering himself most touchingly with the thought of the peace at home, and then he broke off half way, and could not continue for some days:—­

’My dearest Fan,—­You remember the old happy anniversaries of your birthday—­the Feniton party—­the assembly of relations—­the regular year’s festivity.

’No doubt this anniversary brings as much true happiness, the assurance of a more abiding joy, the consciousness of deeper and truer sympathy.  You are, I hope, to pass the day cheerfully and brightly with perhaps ——­ and ——­ about you....  Anyhow, I shall think of you as possibly all together, the remnant of the old family gathering, on a calm autumn day, with lovely South Devon scenery around you.

’The day comes to me in the midst of one of the deepest sorrows I have ever known—­perhaps I have never felt such sorrow...perhaps I have never been so mercifully supported under it.  It is a good and profitable sorrow I trust for me:  it has made so much in me reveal itself as hollow, worldly, selfish, vainglorious.  It has, I hope, helped to strip away the veil, and may be by God’s blessing the beginning of more earnest life-long repentance and preparation for death.

’On August 15 I was at Santa Cruz.  You know that I had a very remarkable day there three years ago.  I felt very anxious to renew acquaintance with the people, who are very numerous and strong.

’I went off in the boat with Atkin (twenty), Pearce (twenty-three or twenty-four years old), Edwin Nobbs, Fisher Young, and Hunt Christian, the last three Norfolk Islanders.  Atkin, Edwin and Fisher have been with me for two or three years—­all young fellows of great promise, Fisher perhaps the dearest of all to me, about eighteen, and oh! so good, so thoroughly truthful, conscientious, and unselfish!

’I landed at two places among many people, and after a while came back as usual to the boat.  All seemed pleasant and hopeful.  At the third place I landed amidst a great crowd, waded over the broad reef (partially uncovered at low water), went into a house, sat down for some time, then returned among a great crowd to the boat and got into it.  I had some difficulty in detaching the hands of some men swimming in the water.

’Well, when the boat was about fifteen yards from the reef, on which crowds were standing, they began (why I know not) to shoot at us.—­ (Another letter adds) 300 or 400 people on the reef, and five or six canoes being round us, they began to shoot at us.—­I had not shipped the rudder, so I held it up, hoping it might shield off any arrows that came straight, the boat being end on, and the stern, having been backed into the reef, was nearest to them.