My dear young wife, Mary Ann Robson, and I were landed on Tanna on the 5th November, 1858, in excellent health and full of all tender and holy hopes. On the 12th February, 1859, she was confined of a son; for two days or so both mother and child seemed to prosper, and our island-exile thrilled with joy! But the greatest of sorrows was treading hard upon the heels of that joy! My darling’s strength showed no signs of rallying. She had an attack of ague and fever, a few days before her confinement; on the third day or so thereafter, it returned, and attacked her every second day with increasing severity for a fortnight. Diarrhœa ensued, and symptoms of pneumonia, with slight delirium at intervals; and then in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3rd March. To crown my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear babyboy, whom we had named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one week’s sickness, on the 20th March. Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me; as for all others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows! I knew then, when too late, that our work had been entered on too near the beginning of the Rainy Season. We were both, however, healthy and hearty; and I daily pushed on with the house, making things hourly more comfortable, in the hope that long lives were before us both, to be spent for Jesus in seeking the salvation of the perishing Heathen. Oh, the vain yet bitter regrets, that my dear wife had not been left on Aneityum till after the unhealthy Rainy Season! But no one advised this course; and she, high-spirited, full of buoyant hope, and afraid of being left behind me, or of me being left without her on Tanna, refused to allow the thing to be suggested. In our mutual inexperience, and with our hearts aglow for the work of our lives, we incurred this risk which should never have been incurred; and I only refer to the matter thus, in the hope that others may take warning.