A first visit was paid to Savo; where numerous canoes came out to meet them, one a kind of state galley, with the stem and stern twelve feet high, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and ornamented with white shells (most likely the ovum or poached egg), and containing the chief men of the island.  The people spoke the Ysabel language, and the place seemed promising.

Some little time was spent in beating up to Bauro; where the Bishop again landed at Taroniara’s village, and slept in his hut, which was as disagreeable as all such places were:—­’Such a night always disturbs me for a time, throws everything out of regular working order; but it always pays, the people like it, and it shows a confidence in them which helps us on.

’I was disappointed though in the morning, when Taroniara declined to come with me to this place.

’My people say, “Why do you go away?”—­the old stupid way of getting out of an engagement.’  However, two others came to ‘this place,’ which was a hut in the village of Wango, which the Bishop had hired for ten days for the rent of a hatchet.

’A very sufficient rent too, you would say, if you could see the place.  I can only stand upright under the ridge pole, the whole of the oblong is made of bamboo, with a good roof that kept out a heavy shower last night.  There is a fresh stream of water within fifteen yards, where I bathed at 9 P.M. yesterday; and as I managed to get rid of strangers by 8.30, it was not so difficult to manage a shift into a clean and dry sleeping shirt, and then, lying down on Aunt William’s cork-bed (my old travelling companion), I slept very fairly.

’People about the hut at earliest dawn; and the day seems long, the sustained effort of talking, the heat, the crowd, and the many little things that should not but do operate as an annoyance, all tire one very much.  But I hope that by degrees I may get opportunities of talking about the matter that I come to talk about.  Just now the trading with the vessel, which is detained here by the weather, and surprise at my half-dozen books, &c., prevent any attention being paid to anything else.

’7 P.M.—­The vessel went off at 10.30 A.M.  I felt for a little while rather forlorn, and a little sinking at the heart.  You see I confess it all, how silly!  Can’t I after so many years bear to be left in one sense alone?  I read a little of you know what Book, and then found the feeling pass entirely away.

’But, more than that, the extreme friendliness of the people, the real kindness was pleasant to me.  One man brought his child, “The child of us two, Bishop.”  Another man, “These cocoa-nut trees are the property of us two, remember.”  A third, “When you want yams, don’t you buy them, tell me.”

’But far better still.  Many times already to-day have I spoken to the people; they have so far listened that they say, “Take this boy, and this boy, and this boy.  We see now why you don’t want big men, we see now that you can’t stop here long, what for you wish for lads whom you may teach, we see that you want them for a long time.  Keep these lads two years.”