We seized the opportunity to write letters, which were posted on the ships, and one of our number went to see the doctor. To the credit of the enemy be it said, that almost all the letters subsequently arrived, a sad exception being a butterfly, addressed to Professor Poulton at Oxford, which, if, as may have been the case, it was retained as something valuable, presumably went down off the Falkland Islands. Mr. Edmunds, meanwhile, had not unnaturally rejoiced at having his market brought to his door, and sold the ships nearly £1,000 worth of meat. They offered to pay for it in gold, but it seemed common prudence to ask instead for an order, a decision which was later sadly lamented. On Thursday some of our staff returned: the Germans were, it seemed, most unpopular; they did not come on shore and had given no food, clothes, or soap. Kanaka sentiment at this moment would have been certainly pro-Ally. On Friday rumours reached us that there was something mysterious going on. Why, it was asked, did the Germans say they had no newspapers, so rarely come on shore, and go out at night without lights? and why did one officer say that “in two months Germany would be at the top of the tree”? We discussed the matter and passed it off as “bazaar talk.” On Sunday, however, news came from Mataveri which we could no longer wholly discredit. The German tobacco planter had been on board, and the crew had disobeyed orders and disclosed to their countryman the fact that there was a great European war; the combatants were correctly stated, but much detail was added. Two hundred thousand men were, it was said, waiting at Kiel to invade England; the war had taken our country by surprise, and the German ships had already made a sudden raid and sunk eight or nine Dreadnoughts in the Thames; the Emperor was nearly at Paris, though the French continued to fight on most bravely. It was a terrible war as neither side would show the white flag. An army had been sent from England to the assistance of the French, but it had been badly defeated. The English Labour Party had objected to troops being sent out of the country, in consequence of which the Asquith ministry had fallen, the House of Lords came in somehow; anyway, England was now a Republic, and so were Canada and Australia; India was in flames, and two troopships had been sunk on the way there from Australia.