of some of my father's friends, who were now in the Government, I got a good appointment, which, if not accompanied by a very high salary, at all events renders me independent, and holds out the prospect of an advance to better things. My experience of the Colymbian language has enabled me to suggest numerous improvements in the telegraphic signs and symbols, which have been favourably received at head-quarters, and I believe I have been recommended for promotion on account of my useful suggestions.
I have made many attempts to obtain the electricity for the telegraphic instruments directly from the earth, as is done in Colymbia, but hitherto without success. It may be that I have not been able to construct my apparatus properly, or that the electrical force is much more considerable in amount in that very volcanic region, where enormous chemical decompositions, attended by proportionate electrical action, are always going on, than in our non-volcanic country. I am in hopes of being able some day to perfect a tidal machine, which will be especially welcome to manufacturers in these days of dear coal, but at present I am rather bothered with the excess of power at my command, the tides having a rise and fall here so much greater than in the Pacific Ocean.
When sending messages to all parts of the globe, I sometimes think how near some of them must pass to that strange country, which was so entirely unknown to all geographers and travellers, I mean, of course, the inhabited portions of it; as the archipelago itself is put down in the charts, but marked "uninhabited and uninhabitable." I can sometimes hardly persuade myself of the reality of my residence there; all
