away from home and friends, and partly from a secret disappointment at the arrangement which made him for a time acting-master, not to say steward, of the ship, so that he had to live on board of her, and make himself useful on Sundays, according to need, in the churches on shore, a desultory life very trying to him, but which he bore with his usual quiet determination to do obediently and faithfully the duty laid on him, without picking or choosing.

The journal-letters continue on the 17th of January:  ’Wrote a Maori sermon this morning, not feeling able yet to preach extempore in the native language, though it is much better to do so as soon as I can.  Now I must stick to the vessel again.  I have been quite frisky, really, for two days past, and have actually slept on shore, the fourth time since September 24.  The sensation is exceedingly pleasant of firm ground underneath and clean water, a basin, &c., to wash in.  And yet I almost like coming back to my ship home:  it is really very comfortable, and you know I always liked being a good deal alone.  I am reading, for lightish reading, the first part of the third volume of Neander’s Church History, which is all about Missions.  It is the fifth volume in the way his works are usually bound up, and came out in this box the other day.  It is very interesting, especially to me now, and it is curious to observe how much the great men insisted upon the necessity of attending to the more secular part of missionary work,—­agriculture, fishing, and other means of humanizing the social condition of the heathen among whom they lived.  Columbanus and Boniface, and his pupil Gregory, and others (all the German Missionaries, almost) just went on the plan the Bishop wants to work out here.

’2.  P.M.  I am off to Otaki to see my native parishioners.  What different work from calling in at S. W.’s and other good Alfingtonians!  The walk will be pleasant, especially as I have been grinding away at navigation all the morning.  My stupid head gets puzzled at that kind of work; and yet it is very good for me, just because it requires accuracy.

’29th.  Just as I am beginning to get some hold of the Maori, so as to make real use of it, the Island languages are beginning to come into work.  I have a curious collection here now—­some given by the Judge, who is a great philologist, others belonging to the Bishop—­a Ms. grammar here, one chapter of St. Mark in another language, four Gospels in a third, a few chapters of Kings with the Lord’s Prayer in a fourth, besides Marsden’s Malay grammar and lexicon.  Mrs. Nihill has given me some few sheets of the Nengone language, and also lent me her husband’s Ms. grammar.  One letter, written «;, but pronounced a sort of rg in the throat, yet not like an ordinary guttural, she declares took two years to learn.  You may fancy I have enough to do, and then all my housekeeping affairs take up a deal of time, for I not only have