AND THE NEW HEBRIDES
109
At the end of January, 189 5, in a hurried note, he wrote : "Just returned from nearly seven weeks' travel in Tasmania, pleading the ~issionary cause. Owing to the slow mode of travel it was more exhausting than my labours in the Old Country, but I do trust help may accrue to the work of Jesus." His son Frank had meanwhile, after prayerful consideration, accepted the call of the British Committee to become their Missionary, on the understanding that, after his theological course in Melbourne1 then drawing to a close, he should enter upon a year's medical training to fit him better for the work. Tanna was his choice, if only a settlement could be secured among the West Coast savages. The tirne of his departure could not, however, be earlier than April, I 896. Meanwhile, shortly before his seventy-first birthday, the Missionary again sailed for the New• Hebrides, and the first news received from him was an intimation that he had paid a visit to the .West Coast of Tanna, the prospective field of his son's future labours. Tanna never left his mind and heart. " I have been ashore," he wrote, "on the West Coast of Tanna in a severe storm. We conversed first with a lonely trader and his wife there. Afterwards we talked with a big Chief and some others, and they are to consult with the surrounding Chiefs and see if all are agreed to have and protect a Missionary living amongst them. They had only a few days before killed and feasted on a man