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