_March 16._—After all, our letters have never gone. The weather was so bad that it was impossible to finish necessary repairs to the Government steamer (which recently discovered a new coral-reef, greatly to her own discomfiture). The glass is falling steadily, and there is every symptom of an approaching hurricane, which will probably carry away our whole roof if it proves severe. Nor is this our only danger. This morning when daylight broke we found that my dear little burn in the rocky glen had swollen to an angry mountain torrent, and was tearing along, making new little streams and waterfalls in every direction—one right across the verandah. A squad of men have been working at a dike all the afternoon; but as it has rained steadily all day, and the bed of the stream is not ten feet from the drawing-room and nursery windows, we fully expect to be washed out to-night. So the drawing-room and my room have been entirely dismantled, and present a hideous sight of blank bare floors and packing-cases! As for the poor little attempt at a garden, young rivers are careering all over it. As yet our only flowers are balsams, raised from seed, not very interesting flowers, but our only treasures in this flowerless region. But really, what pleasure is there in making anything nice in such a country? I thought I would have my room very dandy, so I invested in a pair of tall vases to stand on carved brackets and hold ferns and grasses. Almost the first day I put them up, one sudden gust of wind blew them both over, and I found only fragments! The Governor has just come to despatch the gentlemen to dig out Mrs Macgregor, the doctor’s wife, who is being buried by a mud avalanche, and her husband is far too busy with his sick folk to look after her. The hospital is quite full, and he has out-patients in all directions. We certainly heard very false accounts of the healthiness of this place, especially the utter absence of sunstroke. At least three deaths have been due to it since we came. One victim was a Fijian, who dropped down dead at his work on Saturday; the other two were Engineers; and a labour-boy dropped down dead yesterday, but I do not know from what cause. A third Engineer died and was buried yesterday. They only landed here in September, and out of their corps of sixty men three have died, and many are on the sick-list. Just imagine that they have never yet got their sun-hats, or any white clothing, though this is by far the hottest place any of us have ever been in! The cemetery lies on a hill beyond us, and it is so sad seeing all the funerals pass. The last was that of a poor American sailor, who died in hospital, and four labour-boys trotted past, carrying him with no more ceremony than if the coffin had been an old packing-case.