panion and constant
friend, and my fellow-sufferer in all that remains still to be related
of our Mission life on Tanna.

Before this plague of measles was brought amongst us I had sailed round
in the _John Knox_ to Black Beach on the opposite side of Tanna, and
prepared the way for settling Teachers. And they were placed soon after
by Mr. Copeland and myself with encouraging hopes of success, and with
the prospect of erecting there a Station for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, the
newly arrived Missionaries from Nova Scotia. But this dreadful imported
epidemic blasted all our dreams. They devoted themselves from the very
first, and assisted me in every way to alleviate the dread sufferings of
the Natives. We carried medicine, food, and even water, to the
surrounding villages every day, few of themselves being able to render
us much assistance. Nearly all who took our medicine and followed
instructions as to food, etc., recovered; but vast numbers of them would
listen to no counsels, and rushed into experiments which made the attack
fatal all around. When the trouble was at its height, for instance, they
would plunge into the sea, and seek relief; they found it an almost
instant death. Others would dig a hole into the earth, the length of the
body and about two feet deep; therein they laid themselves down, the
cold earth feeling agreeable to their fevered skins; and when the earth
around them grew heated, they got friends to dig a few inches deeper,
again and again, seeking a cooler and cooler couch. In this ghastly
effort many of them died, literally in their own graves, and were buried
where they lay! It need not be surprising, though we did everything in
our power to relieve and save them, that the natives associated us with
the white men who had so dreadfully afflicted them, and that their blind
thirst for revenge did not draw fine distinctions between the Traders
and the Missionaries. Both were whites--that was enough.

Before leaving this terrible plague of measles, I may record my belief
that it swept away, with accompanying sore throat and diarrhea, a third
of the entire population of Tanna; nay? in certain localities more than
a third perished. The living declared themselves unable to bury the
dead, and great want and suffering ensued. The Teacher and his wife and
child, placed by us at Black Beach, were also taken away; and his
companion, the other Teacher there, embraced the first opportunity to
leave along with his w