Three Years in Tristan da Cunha

Excerpt: ...out better than I expected, indeed, it looks quite tailor-made. We are having an incursion of rats, and traps are going off at all hours of the day and night. Most of the rats caught are small and more like mice. The other day my favourite chicken walked into the sitting-room and got its head caught in a trap. It extricated itself, but was so stunned it fell over and could not walk; it has since recovered. Monday, April 15.-As there are holes in the roof it had been arranged that the back side of the house should be re-thatched, and the men, fourteen in all, came to-day to do it. We got up soon after five to be ready for them, and had time to go down for a bathe. They began by cutting the tussock in the garden. While they were doing that we partly emptied the loft. By the time we came back from school they were in full swing. After taking off the old thatch they swept the loft, and a nice time we had of it below. As soon as possible Ellen buckled to to sweep. When their work was done they had tea with biscuits and rock cakes. Nine hundred bundles of tussock were used to thatch the one side of the house. The men fasten the thatch to the rafters with tarred string using a large iron needle. Three men work together, one in the loft, one on the roof, and a third tossing up bundles. We had sent to the Cape for lead to put along the ridge in the place of turf, and this they have put on. We hope now the roof will be rain and dust-proof, and the walls less damp. Poor Mrs. H. Green is still feeling very miserable; she manages to get about and that is all. Her eldest daughter, Ethel, who is just sixteen, is getting on so well at school. She is by far the best reader, reading quite fluently, and writes very well. She is very staid, and we think she might possibly act as school-mistress in the future. Her brother Alfred, two years older, has perseveringly stuck to his reading. He can hardly master even short words. Still, he is getting on, especially in...