appeared to bring me back here to Tanrig, and heartily glad am I to be back here again in comparative comfort. We had a pleasant but rather heavy row up the coast, our party on board numbering twenty-eight. Fortunately the sea was very smooth, and not much wind, or probably we should not have fared so well. All my Tasmouri friends came on with me and are spending the night. All were well here and the place looked much as usual. One little baby had died unbaptized during my absence, a matter of great regret to everybody, and very much so to me. I had known of the child’s illness, and it was better before I left. I had therefore postponed its Baptism until I could make it convenient to Baptize three or four more infants now waiting for the Rite. _Thursday, August 12th._--General holiday. Arthur took occasion to “nasu ima” at the same time with me, and the great event of two house warmings drew together a large concourse of people. Fire was lit in my house, and part of a pig and two fowls were cooked in the oven. It is the custom here to have as many kinds of flesh as possible on these occasions, and as many kinds of vegetables, representing I suppose all the different sorts of food that will hereafter be cooked therein. There has been great preparation for this day, and great excitement to-day. Every household added its mite to the feast, and in the evening when the feast was spread out there was a grand display. Everyone had huge pieces of yam and taro and banana cake, and a large piece of fish, fowl and pork. The pork takes precedence, but the fish costs the greatest pains in provision, not being so easily within their reach or means of acquisition. Fish in these countries do not seem to take hook and bait readily, and the poor natives have to resort to all manner of odd expedients to secure them. There were many strangers here, and quite 150 people or more must have partaken. The pork was very nice and most beautifully cooked in the native oven. The females presided over the cutting up, but Arthur as co-host with myself gave directions as master of the feast. He gave a sigh of relief when he came into my house after it was all over, and said “there, what a poor return for so much labour.” That always strikes me as the most pitiable thing about a feast, it is all over in the twinkling of an eye, and what have you for your pains?