108 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



Mr Pagell told me, with a slightly humorous twinkle 

 in his eye, and being guilty of a little conjugal infi- 

 delity, that one great cause of his wife's anxiety on 

 my account was that she did not know where I was 

 to be buried, or how a coffin was to be made for me. 

 About the 10th and 12th of July it looked very like 

 as if the time had come for arrangements of that 

 kind being made ; and poor Mrs Pagell was, naturally 

 enough, greatly at a loss what to do in the absence of 

 her husband. Ground is very valuable at Pu, and 

 difficult to be had, being entirely artificial, and ter- 

 raced up on the mountain-side. For a stranger to 

 occupy any portion of it in perpetuity would have 

 been a serious and expensive matter ; and Moravian 

 feeling revolted at the idea of growing vegetables 

 or buckwheat over my grave. Then, as everything 

 should be done decently and in order, the question 

 as to a coffin was very perplexing. Had the practical 

 missionary himself been there, he could at least have 

 supervised the construction of one by the Pu carpen- 

 ters ; but his wife felt quite unequal to that, and was 

 much distressed in consequence. Had I known of 

 this anxiety, I could have put her mind at rest, be- 

 cause it never occurred to me that, in the circum- 

 stances, the responsibility of making arrangements 

 would fall upon any one except myself. Death 

 never appeared to myself so near as the people beside 

 me believed it to be ; and my determination was, if 

 it became inevitable, to make arrangements to have 



