About three days after I last wrote to you, the little island-steamboat suddenly arrived, and an hour later I had bidden adieu to Nananu and to the kind friends who call it home. For a few hours we lay off Viti Levu bay to take in those identical corn-sacks with which we had become so intimately acquainted! The following morning I arrived here, found Lady Gordon and the children well, and everything about the place continuing to become cosier and more home-like month by month. How it was improved since we first arrived! The household pets have received several additions—namely, some young Kai Tholos, orphaned by the war. Yesterday a fine young chief, Ratu Taivita (that is, David), who was with Captain Knollys in the mountains, and has ever since been very ill from the hardships which he there endured, died. He was very popular, and his death is much mourned. It was decided that he should have a military funeral, as he was an officer in the native police, and that his companions in arms should assemble in force to pay him the last tokens of respect. He was buried this morning. I went to the funeral with Captain Olive and the Baron. We assembled at his father’s house; and it was a fine striking and touching picture that we there saw. Taivita was a fine handsome fellow, and he looked grand in death, lying on his mats, with dark native cloth thrown over him, and his mass of tawny silky hair thrown back almost on the lap of his sister, who sat on the mats at his head. The old chief, his father, sat at his feet, as one crushed with sorrow. Thakombau’s sons, Ratu Abel, Timothy, and Joe, with another very high chief, Ratu Johnny, were the pall-bearers; and the old Vuni Valu followed up the steep path which leads to the cemetery, where already so many have found a quiet resting-place beneath the tall palms and waving grasses. The grave was found to be too shallow, and all had to stand for an hour in the burning sun while it was deepened—a trying hour for both the father and the old Vuni Valu. There is a chance of sending letters to New Zealand, so I may as well despatch this. * * * * * NASOVA, _December 22_.