“Now that I have sat down to write, so much comes crowding upon me that I hardly know where to begin; but I cannot put down a word of news before testifying of the Lord’s goodness to us, which has just been vouchsafed during this last hot season. He has encompassed us round as with a shield and preserved us safe and well, though from the day after the _Dayspring_ left for the Colonies on the 14th November last until the 30th March we have lived in daily—I might almost say _hourly_—terror of our lives. We have seen—especially John has—the rage of the Heathen, and passed through Earthquake and Hurricane; but all seems as nothing compared with coming into constant contact with an unrestrained _madman_, and this we have had to do with poor Mungaw.... “You must not think of us as pining in solitude, however. Indeed, poor Mungaw took care to keep us all in lively exercise, and acted his first scene the day after the _Dayspring_ left for Sydney with our mails. You know that he married Litsi, one of my best girls (and how delighted we were at the time that she was getting such a good young man!), who was with me on my first visit to Australia from Aniwa, and you remember how pleased you all were with her. Well, he spent the night beating that gentle girl (who was near her confinement) and their little boy about two years of age; and when John met him in the Imrai and quietly remonstrated with him, he stalked off in high dudgeon; and in two minutes more, a tremendous crackling and roar of fire made us rush to the window, where we saw his nice house and all that was in it one mass of flame. Not content with setting it on fire, he tore off Litsi’s jacket and flung it in too. We quite expected that our own house would go, as there were only two light fences betwixt some of our outhouses and his, but providentially the wind carried everything the other way. “He then took Litsi and Nomaki, their little boy, to a distant village; and, oh! how we hoped he would remain, as Litsi had friends there, but back he dragged them, terror-stricken and breathless from having to keep pace with his tremendous strides. I sent Litsi an old jacket (she begged me not to send a good one, as it might go the same way), and a blanket to sleep or rather to roll herself in—for there was no sleep for any one near that night. He had threatened to murder some of the villagers, and was stalking round and round our Premises with his loaded musket; but an Aneityumese Teacher kept watch over our house all the night.