Dr. Inglis and a number of his most energetic Natives accompanied us to Kwamera, Tanna. There we purchased a site for Mission House and Church, and laid a stone foundation, and advanced as far as practicable the erection of a dwelling for Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson. Thence we proceeded to Port Resolution, Tanna, and similarly purchased a site, and advanced, to a forward stage, the house which Mrs. Paton and I were to occupy on our settlement there. Lime, for plastering, had to be burned in kilns from the coral rocks; and thatch, for roofing with sugar-cane leaf, had to be prepared by the Natives at both stations before our return; for which, as for all else, a price was duly agreed upon and was scrupulously paid. Unfortunately we learned, when too late, that both houses were too near the shore, exposed to unwholesome miasma, and productive of the dreaded fever and ague,—the most virulent and insidious enemy to all Europeans in those Southern Seas. At both Stations, but especially at Port Resolution, we found the Natives in a very excited and unsettled state. Threatened wars kept them in constant terror—war betwixt distant tribes, or adjoining villages, or nearest neighbours. The Chiefs, at both Stations, willingly sold sites for houses, and appeared to desire Missionaries to live amongst them; but perhaps it was with an eye to the axes, knives, fish-hooks, blankets, and clothing, which they got in payment, or hoped for in plunder, rather than from any thirst for the Gospel, as they were all savages and cannibals. They warily declined to promise protection to the Mission families and the Teachers; but they said they would not themselves do them any harm, though they could not say what the Inland people might do;—not a bad specimen of diplomacy, leaving an open door for any future emergency, and neither better nor worse than the methods by which the civilized European nations make and break their treaties in peace and in war! Such promises meant and were intended to mean nothing. The Natives, both on Tanna, and on my second home at Aniwa, believed that they had kept their promise, if they inflicted no injury with their own hands, even though they had hired others to do so. No Heathen there could be trusted one step beyond what appeared to be his own self-interest for the nonce; and nothing conceivable was too base or cruel to be done, if only it served his turn. The depths of Satan, outlined in the first chapter of the Romans, were uncovered there before our eyes in the daily life of the people, without veil and without excuse.