100 THOMAS J. COMBER. 
return and remain for three months at San Salvador. 
This he did, and, together with his brethren, endeav- 
oured to consolidate the Mission in that place. 
Services were regularly conducted, averaging in 
attendance, 1 50 ; a school for the boys was opened ; 
good progress was made with the language, and 
perhaps, most important of all, their purpose in going 
to San Salvador was becoming better understood, and 
the influence of their characters and lives beginning 
to tell. Besides these results, temporary premises 
had been erected, and a stone house had been par- 
tially built. The difficulty apd time connected with 
the last of these achievements will be . understood 
when it is stated that two days were occupied in 
searching for limestone for mortar ; three in making 
a road to get to it ; four days in breaking and blast- 
ing it; three days to carry two and a-half tons of 
limestone to the nearest point of the Little Lueji 
River ; ten days making a twentyTour feet canoe to 
carry a ton of stone and six men to a part of the 
river where fuel is obtainable and an old kiln exists ; 
four more in building two sheds, one to protect the 
lime from rain, and the other to protect himself and 
those who were with him ; three days with thirty mei^' 
dragging canoe from place of cutting to the river ; 
six days clearing the river of obstacles (overgrowths, 
fallen trees, &c.) ; four more days collecting wood 
and burning the lime ; and three days getting to San 
Salvador, with many more days lost through rain. 
All this before mortar could be obtained and the 
walls of the house commenced. 
About this time the king received a communica- 
tion from the French Pere Superior of the Roman 
Catholic Mission at Landana, near Banana, consist- 
ing of twenty-one quarto pageSy which, without Mr. 
Comber’s assistance, he could not have deciphered. 
With ludicrous irony, Mr. Comber gave His Majesty 
to understand that the Pere Superior was full of 
passionate desire for his welfare ; how the writer had 
