78 Letter I. 
happy. It was a pleasure to exist, a pleasure even to breathe, 
in a land where the winds were such as those ascribed by 
Milton to Paradise :— 
“ Now gentle gales, 
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole 
Those balmy spoils.” 
The mission premises, over which we rambled, are both ex- 
tensive and pretty. The dwelling-house is substantially built 
of stone, and roofed with sugarcane-leaf thatch—the substitute 
for slates down here. At the back of it, stand the kitchen, 
various storehouses, natives’ houses, &c. ; whilst a little way off, 
at the side, is the dispensary and a large school-house. 
In front, stretching down towards the shore, is the garden, 
Around the dwelling grow some very fine orange and lemon 
trees, and in an enclosure at the back, bananas and pine-apples 
are cultivated. Fortunately for us, a good deal of the fruit was 
ripe at the time of our landing, so that we enjoyed quite a 
feast. The well loaded branches of the orange trees, although 
the fruit was just ripening, suffered severely, and the mangled 
remains which lay strewed on the ground beneath bore witness 
to the vigour of the attack. From the lofty palm-heads the 
natives showered down bottled lemonade upon us, of which re- 
freshing temperance drink we partook to a considerable ex- 
tent, as it is cool and very pleasant to the taste. From the 
bananas we got contributions of their delicious fruit—fair, fat, 
and yellow, larger, and finer in taste, by far, than anything I 
had met with before. A small piece of cooked taro, which did not 
however meet with general approbation, concluded our feast; after 
which we climbed to the top of a hill near at hand, had a fine 
view of the country towards the mountains, and then went off 
to the vessel for the night, well satisfied with our first day 
ashore in the tropics. 
