248 SANTA CRUZ. 
in the Reefs. In 1904 Mr. Drummond was relieving at the Reefs. 
Ben Teilo, a Matema boy, made good use of the trading connection 
existing between his home and Vanikolo, visiting the latter place and 
beginning a school there. George Domo also started a school on 
Nukapu, but died soon after. By the end of 1905 the Christians 
numbered 127. In 1906 a house was built for the missionaries in 
Graciosa Bay, for the purpose of starting a central training school for 
teachers. ‘The site was easy of access, but proved to be too much on 
the highway for canoes passing up and down to allow of any quiet. 
A few small schools were opened on Ndeni, but the supply of teachers 
was not sufficient. Henry Leambi was the only one of the past who 
was still holding on. At Nifilole the people, never many in number, 
were nearly all dead; Pileni was in an unsatisfactory state, and the two 
teachers at Matema were making gallant efforts to hold their own. 
Teilo opened a new school on Utupua in 1908, having several Reef 
Island assistants, one of them being Govili of Nukapu. While home 
for a holiday Teilo had done good work in preaching and exhorting in 
Matema, Nukapu, and Pileni. A number of Reef Island boys were now 
at Vureas. ‘The statistics for 1908 show the Christians as numbering 
only 77. No white missionary was available now for the group. 
The following year an attempt was made to work the group by 
means of a brotherhood, consisting of Rev. H. N. Drummond, Rev. 
C. Turner, and Mr. Blencowe; Mr. Drummond had left his work on 
Raga for this purpose. Taumako, in the Duff Group, was visited 
and a boy was obtained, and an attempt was made to start a school. 
Nupani, which had asked in vain in former years for a teacher, was 
now found closed against Christianity, owing to the devotion and 
respect paid to the ghosts, who had given them great success in fishing. 
Some catechumens on Nukapu were being instructed for baptism. 
Meanwhile nothing much was doing at Ndeni, except at Te Motu; 
the church at Nelua had fallen into ruins, and the people were content 
to lapse into heathenism. At the end of the year Mr. Drummond 
returned to Raga, and the next year Mr. Blencowe was the only mis- 
sionary left. Rev. G. Bury had come to assist, but died after only 
three months’ work, the victim of malignant ulcers caused by scratches. 
In his ignorance he had healed them over with iodoform and subse- 
quently died of blood-poisoning. Despite the mission’s long history, 
and the fact that all the missionaries suffered more or less from these 
ulcers on the legs, no certain means was known of preventing the 
scratches caused by coral, etc., from festering and turning into these 
ulcers. Corrosive sublimate, lysol, witch hazel, poulticing, iodoform, 
carbolic acid, all these had been tried in vain. No satisfying treatment 
was known, but the writer eventually found that antiphlogistine is a 
remedy and safeguard in the event of the legs being scratched. 
In 1910 the first baptisms were held on Nukapu, one of the persons 
baptized being the sister of Bishop Patteson’s murderer. Volunteers 
