'2 P.M., dinner, roast mutton; my seat between the Bishop and Eota. Fancy the long table with its double row of Maoris. After dinner, away with the Bishop to the hospital, a plain wooden building a mile off, capable of taking in about forty patients in all. I am to visit it regularly when here, taking that work off the parish clergyman's shoulders, and a great comfort it will be. I went through it to-day, and had a long talk with the physician and surgeon, and saw the male patients, two of them natives. One of them is dying, and so I am to be now talking as well as I can, but at all events reading and praying, with this poor fellow, and a great happiness it is to have such a privilege and so on. Came back to tea, very pleasant. After tea made Eota, and Sydney, a young-man who knows English pretty well, sit in my room (N.B., there is but one chair, in which I placed Eota), and then I made them read Maori to me, and read a good deal myself, and then we talked as well as we could. At 6.15, prayers, the whole party of Maoris assembled. Mr. Kissling read the first verse of the chapter (Joshua vi.), and we each read one verse in turn, and then he questioned them for perhaps fifteen minutes. They were very intelligent and answered well, and it was striking to see grown-up men and young women sitting so patiently to be taught. Then the evening service prayers; and so I knelt with these good simple people and prayed with them for the first time. Very much I enjoyed all this. Soon after came supper, a little talking, and now here am I writing to you.
'I wish you could see the tree-ferns; some are quite twenty feet high in the trunk, for trunk it is, and the great broad frond waves over it in a way that would make that child Pena clap her hands with delight. Then the geraniums and roses in blossom, the yellow mimosa flower, the wild moncha, with a white flower, growing everywhere, and the great variety of evergreen trees (none that I have seen being deciduous) make the country very pretty. The great bare volcanic hills, each with its well-defined crater, stand up from among the woodlands, and now from among pastures grazing hundreds of oxen; and this, with the grand sea views, and shipping in the harbour, make a very fine sight.
'July 14.-I write to-night because you will like a line from me on the day when first I have in any way ministered to a native of the country. I was in the hospital to-day, talked a little, and read St. Luke xv. to one, and prayed with another Maori. The latter is dying. He was baptized by the Wesleyans, but is not visited by them, so I do not scruple to go to him. Rota, the native deacon, was with me, and be talked a long while with the poor fellow. It is a great comfort to me to have made a beginning. I did little more than read a few prayers from the Visitation Service, but the man understood me well, so I may be of use, I hope. He has never received the Lord's Supper; but if there is time to prepare him, the Bishop wishes me to administer it to him.
'July 20.-Yesterday in sailed the "Southern Cross" with not a spar carried away or sail lost, perfectly sound, and in a fit state to be off again at once. She left England on the same day that we did, and arrived just a fortnight after us, and this is attributable to her having kept in low latitudes, not going higher than 39°; whereas we were in 51° 30', which diminished the distance and brought us in the way of more favourable winds. I saw from my windows about 9 A.M. a schooner in the distance, and told the Bishop I thought it might be the "Southern Cross" (she has no figure-head and a very straight bow). Through the day, which was very rainy, we kept looking from time to time through our glasses. At 3 P.M. the Bishop came in: "Come along, Coley; I do believe it is the 'Southern Cross.'" So I hurried on waterproofs, knowing that we were in for some mudlarking. Off we went, lugged down a borrowed boat to the water, tide being out. I took one oar, a Maori another, and off we went, Bishop steering. After twenty minutes' pull, or thereabouts, we met her, jumped on board, and then such a broadside of questions and answers. They had a capital passage. Two men who were invalided when they started died on the voyage-one of dysentery, I think-all the rest flourishing, the three women respectable and tidy-looking individuals, and two children very well. After a while the Bishop and I went off to shore, in one of his boats, pulled by two of the crew, Lowestoft fishermen, fine young fellows as you ever saw. Then we bought fresh meat, onions, bread, etc., for them, and so home by 7 P.M. "Mudlarking" very slight on this occasion, only walking over the flat swamp of low-water marsh for a quarter of a mile; but on Tuesday we had a rich scene. Bishop and I went to the "Duke of Portland" and brought off the rest of our things; but it was low- water, so the boats could not come within a long way of the beach, and the custom is for carts to go over the muddy sand, which is tolerably hard, as far into the water as they can, perhaps two and a half or three feet deep when it is quite calm, as it was on Tuesday. Well, in went our cart, which had come from the College, with three valuable horses, while the Bishop and I stood on the edge of the water. Presently one of the horses lost his footing, and then all at once all three slipped up, and the danger was of their struggling violently and hurting themselves. One of those in the shafts had his head under water, too, for a time. Instanter Bishop and I had our coats off, my trousers were rolled over my knees, and in we rushed to the horses. Such a plunging and splashing! but they were all got up safe. This was about 4 P.M., and I was busy about the packages and getting them into the carts, unloading at Mr. Kissling's till past 8; but I did not catch cold. Imagine an English Bishop with attending parson cutting into the water up to their knees to disentangle their cart-horses from the harness in full view of every person on the beach. "This is your first lesson in mudlarking, Coley," was the remark of the Bishop as we laughed over our respective appearance.
'July 21.-I was finishing my sermon for the soldiers to-morrow at 11.30, when Mr. Kissling came in to say that the schooner just come into the harbour was the vessel which had been sent to bring Mr. and Mrs. Nihill from Nengone or Mare Island. He was in very bad health when he went there, and great doubts were entertained as to his coming back. I was deputed to go and see. I ran a good part of the way to the town on to the pier, and there heard that Mr. Nihill was dead. An old acquaintance of Mrs. Nihill was on the pier, so I thought I should be in the way, and came back, told Mrs. Kissling, and went on to the Judge's, and told Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Selwyn. Whilst there we saw a boat land a young lady and child on the beach just below the house, and they sent me down. Pouring with rain here on the beach, taking shelter in a boat-house with her brother, I found this poor young widow; and so, leaning on my arm, she walked up to the house. I just waited to see Mrs. Selwyn throw her arms round her neck, and then walked straight off, feeling that the furious rain and wind chimed in with a violent struggle which was just going on in my own mind. I go through such scenes firmly enough at the time, but when my part is over I feel just like a child, and I found the tears in my eyes; for the universal sympathy which has been expressed by everyone here for the lonely situation of the Nihills at Nengone made me feel almost a personal interest in them. He was a good linguist, and his loss will be severely felt by the Bishop.