Twelve Aneityumese Teachers were at this time living on Tanna, but they had no Schools, and no Books in Tannese, for that language had never yet been reduced to forms that could be printed. The work of the Teachers, besides telling to the people around all that they could regarding Christ and the Christian religion, found its highest value in presenting through their own spirit and character a nobler type of life than any that Heathenism could show. When a Missionary arrives, the Teacher’s first duty is to help him in house-building, fencing, and the many manual and other toils required in organizing the new Station, besides accompanying him on the inland journeys, assisting him in regard to the language as far as possible, and in general furthering the cause. But in altogether virgin soil like that of Tanna, the Aneityumese Teacher, or one from any other island, had the language to acquire first of all, not less than the European Missionary, and was therefore of little use except for manual labour, and that too had to be carried on by signs much more than by words. Not only has every island its own tongue, differing widely from and unintelligible to all the others, but even the people on one side of an island could not sometimes understand or converse with the people on the opposite side of the same. This rendered our work in the New Hebrides not only exceptionally difficult, but its progressive movement distressingly slow. Word had reached Tanna, that, in a quarrel with Sandal-wooders, the Erromangans had murdered three white men and a number of Natives in their employment, in revenge for the white men’s shamefully entreating and murdering the Erromangans. On Tanna all such news were reported and talked over, when the Chiefs and their men of war met for their evening repast—an event that generally wound up with drinking _Kava_, which first produced intoxication like whisky and then stupefaction like a dose of laudanum. Excited by the rumours from Erromanga, they had drunk more than usual, and lay about their Village Drinking-Hall in a helpless host. Enemies from an inland tribe stealthily drew near, and discharged their muskets amongst them in the dark, killing one man, and so, according to their custom, war was known to be declared.