At Tā It no boat was to be had either for sale or for hire. But my face was turned toward home, and I would have gone on a raft. I had to do the next thing—to take a small dug-out which the Prince got for me, and go on to Utaradit, the next town below. There I was able to purchase a boat, which I afterwards sold in Bangkok for what it cost me. Nān Inta was the steersman, and my four men rowed. Our longest stop was at Pitsanulōk, where the Siamese mission now has a station. On reaching Bangkok I was delighted to find that my family had made their long trip down the other river in safety, though not without great anxiety, and some threatened danger. Our oldest daughter had been quite ill on the way. Once they came perilously near falling a prey to a band of robbers. It was only by a clever ruse of the captain that they escaped. As soon as he caught sight of the suspicious-looking group of men on a sand-bar ahead, he had the gong loudly sounded. That and the waving American flag evidently made them think that this was the leading boat of some prince’s flotilla. They incontinently fled into the forest. At the next stopping-place our boatmen learned that it was, indeed, a marauding band that had committed many depredations on passing boats. What a merciful preservation! We spent a few weeks in Bangkok, resting and visiting in the home of my father-in-law, Dr. Bradley, of sainted memory. It proved to be the last time that we ever saw him. He lived only a few months after that. In fifteen years the world had moved. Going round “the Cape,” even in a good clipper ship like the _David Brown_, had become too slow. We took, instead, the steamship _Patroclus_ from Singapore to London, via the Suez Canal. The Rev. Mr. Keyesberry, a missionary friend of Dr. Bradley’s, had been waiting to find an escort to England for two young sons and a daughter. We gladly undertook that service, and so had a flock of seven young folks to look after! We were barely under way when our own children broke out with the measles. The disease, fortunately, proved to be of a mild type, and our new charges were not hard to manage. So, on the whole, we got along very well. In London we had unexpected trouble because the friend who was to meet Alice Keyesberry at the dock failed to appear, and, strangely enough, we had received no memorandum of her destination. It cost us two days’ search to discover her friends at the Walthamstow Mission School. The boys I had promised to convoy as far as Edinburgh. So, leaving my family in London, I had the great pleasure of a visit to the beautiful Scotch capital. The day spent there was to me a memorable one. It was, however, a matter of great regret that, being so near the Highlands, I could not also visit the original home of my ancestors.