When my husband returned saying he had accomplished nothing, I felt that it was “up to me.” “This,” I said, “is a matter requiring tact, and is therefore a woman’s job; _I_ will go and see the old lady.” I had already received from her an embarrassing present of fowls, which, after referring the matter to our host, it had seemed better to accept. Not without inward trepidation, I rode down to the village, taking the Fernandez boy as interpreter, for many of the natives speak a smattering of Spanish. The place was a perfect shambles, joints of meat hanging from all the trees, and skins being pegged out to dry on every hand, but the raiders had been displaying energy in rebuilding the wall round the church. The Prophetess was with a group outside the house of the acting priest, who was her son-in-law; she was a frail old woman with grey hair and expressive eyes, a distinctly attractive and magnetic personality. She wore suspended round her neck some sort of religious medallion, a red cross, I think, on a white ground, and her daughter who supported her carried a small picture of the Saviour in an Oxford frame. She held my hand most amiably during the interview, addressing me as “Caterina.” I had brought her a gift and began by thanking for the fowls. She refused all payments, saying “Food comes from God, I wish for no money,” and proceeded to offer me some of the meat. This gave an opening, and in declining I besought her not to let the Kanakas go out again after the animals, for Mr. Edmunds said he would shoot if they did, and there would be trouble for them when the _Baquedano_ came. As I spoke of the raids her face hardened and her eyes took the look of a fanatic; she said something about “God” with the upward gesture which was her habit in speaking His name. I hastened to relieve the tension by saying that “We must all worship God,” and was happy to find that I was allowed a share in the Deity. Her manner again softened, and looking up to heaven she declared, with an assured confidence, which was in its way sublime, “God will never let the Kanakas be either killed or hurt.” The natives were, in fact, firmly persuaded that no bullet could injure them. As for myself, Angata would, she said, “pray” for me, adding, with a descent to the mundane, that if ever she had “chickens or potatoes,” I should be the first to have them. It was impossible to reason further; we parted the best of friends, but the “tactful” mission had failed!