bad, he don't make
_my_ kitchen; Paul, now working out his debts outdoor; Emma, a strange
weird creature--I suspect (from her colour) a quarter white--widow of a
white man, ugly, capable, a really good laundress; Java--yes, that is
the name--they spell it Siava, but pronounce it, and explain it
Java--her assistant, a creature I adore from her plain, wholesome,
bread-and-butter beauty. An honest, almost ugly, bright, good-natured
face; the rest (to my sense) merely exquisite. She comes steering into
my room of a morning, like Mrs. Nickleby, with elaborate precaution;
unlike her, noiseless. If I look up from my work, she is ready with an
explosive smile. I generally don't, and wait to look at her as she
stoops for the bellows, and trips tiptoe off again, a miracle of
successful womanhood in every line. I am amused to find plain, healthy
Java pass in my fancy so far before pretty young Faauma. I observed
Lloyd the other day to say that Java must have been lovely "when she was
young"; and I thought it an odd word, of a woman in the height of
health, not yet touched with fat, though (to be just) a little slack of
bust.

Our party you know: Fanny, Lloyd, my mother, Belle, and "the babe"--as
we call him--Austin. We have now three instruments; Boehm flageolet,
flute, and Bb clarinet; and we expect in a few days our piano. This is a
great pleasure to me; the band-mastering, the playing and all. As soon
as I am done with this stage of a letter, I shall return, not being
allowed to play, to band-master, being engaged in an attempt to arrange
an air with effect for the three pipes. And I'll go now, by jabers.

[Illustration]

_July 3rd._--A long pause: occasioned, first by some days of hard work:
next by a vile quinsey--if that be the way to spell it. But to-day I
must write. For we have all kinds of larks on hand. The wars and rumours
of wars begin to take consistency, insomuch that we have landed the
weapons this morning, and inspected the premises with a view to defence.
Of course it will come to nothing; but as in all stories of massacres,
the one you don't prepare for is the one that comes off. All our natives
think ill of the business; none of the whites do. According to our
natives the demonstration threatened for to-day or to-morrow is one of
vengeance on the whites--small wonder--and if that begins--where will it
stop? Anyway I don't mean to go down for nothing, if I can help it; and
to amuse you I will tell you our pl