by their _very_ unhealthy and miserable look,
but oh, dear, they do sing well! and it was very affecting. One of the
Barnbys teaches them. They have a good organ, and one of the blind men
played very well. They sang very refinedly. No doubt they are well
taught, but no doubt also the sense of hearing is delicate with
them....

_Frimhurst._ April 18, 1879.

I got here safely yesterday, though I had a horrid headache on
Wednesday, and expected to arrive here in very bad condition. I felt
rather bad yesterday morning, but as I drew near, marvellous to
relate, my headache went away! Oh! I thought so much of you, as the
misty network of pines against the sky--the stretches of moor--the
flashes of the canal--and all the dear familiar Heimath Land came
nearer and nearer....

It is still "chill April" even here, but wonderfully different from
Yorkshire. Sunshine--and green things so much more forward--and birds
singing their very throats out.

"Lion," the mastiff, I am rather frightened of, but he loves me and
gives me paws over and over again. He is pawing me now and will
interrupt.

April 22.

The weather is intensely cold again, though nothing can make this
country quite dreary--but cold it is! Still there are all the dear old
features, I did not know the Mitchett side (of the Frimhurst bridge)
of the canal; but I have been a good way down getting water-weeds--but
of course you know it well. It is curiously like bits of the S. John
[New Brunswick] River. One could almost see birch-bark canoes at
points.

To-day the Jelfs came. It was an affecting meeting, our first since
he was so ill in Cyprus, and he said, "It used to seem so little
likely one would ever again see the old faces."... He spoke at once
about your calling this country Heimath Land, saying it seemed the
very word.

I am going on Thursday to stay with the Jelfs till Monday; I shall be
so thankful to get a Sunday in the old Tin Tabernacle.

_K Lines, South Camp, Heimath Land._
April 25.

It is a sunny sweet day, so that I have been strolling about in the
garden without a jacket. It is strangely pleasant being here, the old
scenes without, and all Sir Howard Elphinstone's pretty things within.
The Jelfs are staying in the Elphinstones' hut. In the matter of
pictures I do not always agree with Sir Howard, but his decorative
taste is very good, and the things he has picked up in all parts of
the world are delightful. "Et ego, etc." We h