On Friday morning about eleven 1500 cacao seeds arrived, and
we set to and toiled from twelve that day to six, and went to
bed pretty tired. Next day I got about an hour and a half at
my History, and was at it again by 8.10, and except an hour
for lunch kept at it till four P.M. Yesterday, I did some
History in the morning, and slept most of the afternoon; and
to-day, being still averse from physical labour, and the mail
drawing nigh, drew out of the squad, and finished for press
the fifth chapter of my History; fifty-nine pages in one
month; which (you will allow me to say) is a devil of a large
order; it means at least 177 pages of writing; 89,000 words!
and hours going to and fro among my notes. However, this is
the way it has to be done; the job must be done fast, or it
is of no use. And it is a curious yarn. Honestly, I think
people should be amused and convinced, if they could be at
the pains to look at such a damned outlandish piece of
machinery, which of course they won't. And much I care.

When I was filling baskets all Saturday, in my dull mulish
way, perhaps the slowest worker there, surely the most
particular, and the only one that never looked up or knocked
off, I could not but think I should have been sent on
exhibition as an example to young literary men. Here is how
to learn to write, might be the motto. You should have seen
us; the verandah was like an Irish bog; our hands and faces
were bedaubed with soil; and Faauma was supposed to have
struck the right note when she remarked (A PROPOS of
nothing), 'Too much ELEELE (soil) for me!' The cacao (you
must understand) has to be planted at first in baskets of
plaited cocoa-leaf. From four to ten natives were plaiting