Our little missionary ship, the _John Knox_, having no accommodation for lady passengers, and little for anybody else, except the discomfort of lying on deck, we took advantage of a trader to convey us from Aneityum to Tanna. The captain kindly offered to take us and about thirty casks and boxes to Port Resolution for £5, which we gladly accepted. After a few hours’ sailing we were all safely landed on Tanna on the 5th November, 1858. Dr. Geddie went for a fortnight to Umairarekar, on the south side of Tanna, to assist in the settlement of Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, and to help in making their house habitable and comfortable. Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I were left at Port Resolution, to finish the building of our house there, and work our way into the goodwill of the Natives as best we could. On landing there, we found the people to be literally naked and painted savages; they were at least as destitute of clothing as Adam and Eve after the fall, when they sewed fig-leaves for a girdle; and even more so, for the women wore only a tiny apron of grass, in some cases shaped like a skirt or girdle, the men an indescribable affair, like a pouch or bag, and the children absolutely nothing whatever! At first they came in crowds to look at us, and at everything we did or had. We knew nothing of their language; we could not speak a single word to them, nor they to us. We looked at them, they at us; we smiled, and nodded, and made signs to each other; this was our first meeting and parting. One day I observed two men, the one lifting up one of our articles to the other, and saying,— “Nunksi nari enu?” I concluded that he was asking, “What is this?” Instantly, lifting a piece of wood, I said,— “Nunksi nari enu?” They smiled and spoke to each other. I understood them to be saying, “He has got hold of our language now.” Then they told me their name for the thing which I had pointed to. I found that they understood my question, What is this? or, What is that? and that I could now get from them the name of every visible or tangible thing around us! We carefully noted down every name they gave us, spelling all phonetically, and also every strange sound we heard from them; thereafter, by painstaking comparison of different circumstances, we tried to ascertain their meanings, testing our own guess by again cross-questioning the Natives. One day I saw two males approaching, when one, who was a stranger, pointed to me with his finger, and said,— “Se nangin?” Concluding that he was asking my name, I pointed to one of them with my finger, and looking at the other, inquired,— “Se nangin?”