Here time seems of no importance and no account, and it wearies me sometimes to see people squatting about for hours at a time, whistling or otherwise killing time. It is an ennervating climate no doubt, but that is no excuse for laziness in people who have been born and brought up in the country. I often urge laggards and idlers, who make my house a convenient lounge, to go to work and plant their fences, but as nothing can be done out of due course, what was, is, and ever must be the same. In the evening there was a great feast spread for the workers, and the day finished like all days here, with Evensong and school. This little village is a bright spot in the surrounding darkness, and I trust in time its influence for good will be more widely felt than even now. The attendants at the school seem wonderfully staunch, and the teachers very earnest, and I pray God that their vigorous instruction may not be lost on the heathen people around them. But there is the same callousness attending religious practice as about everything else here, and although they see the beauty and the benefit of Christianity, the effort is too great to reduce its blessed precepts to daily practice. _Wednesday, September 22nd._--By-and-bye I shall have as much trouble with my white flock, as with the black. The white Traders have got some feud one against the other because of difference of nationality, and I had to listen again to accusations from an Englishman against a Frenchman, as to plots against his life and property. Poor man, he is new to the business, is doing well, and fancies that he is taking the bread out of the Frenchmen’s mouths, but there is room for all. I found he was not only filled with gloomy fears himself, but had imbued the chief under whom he lives with warlike intentions also, and I had to put a veto upon any resort to open violence. I told the chief “Tabi,” that he must keep his hands from all white men, and if he had any complaints to make, to make them in the proper quarter, and not take the law into his own hands. He must learn the sacredness of human life, and not rush to bow and arrow and club for every fancied affront or grievance. As long as I was here I would do my best to see that peace and harmony reigned among whites and blacks, but I would countenance no violence or bloodshed. After this I went to the Frenchman at La[¨n]a[¨n]qa, and he seemed very surprised to think that he was accused of any ill feeling, and judging from his good nature I should imagine his surprise was genuine. However, I said it was very hard if a few white men living on so large an island, could not live at peace, even if their nationalities were various, and if they could not agree among themselves, what could be expected of the natives? I quite like the natty little man, and certainly he is the best colonist I have ever seen down here. He is a most handy man and always employed, and as far as industry goes, he sets the natives a very excellent example.