I
knew you had got neither of my letters, for if you had got them and could
not come yourself, you would have sent some one whom you could trust with
a letter. I know you would, though I do not know how you would have
contrived to do it.
"I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka (or, as his inferior clergy
call him, 'Chowbok'), head of the Christian Mission to Erewhemos, which,
as your father has doubtless told you, is the country adjoining Erewhon,
but inhabited by a coloured race having no affinity with our own. Bishop
Kahabuka has penetrated at times into Erewhon, and the King, wishing to
be on good terms with his neighbours, has permitted him to establish two
or three mission stations in the western parts of Erewhon. Among the
missionaries are some few of your own countrymen. None of us like them,
but one of them is teaching me English, which I find quite easy.
"As I wrote in the letters that have never reached you, I am no longer
Ranger. The King, after some few years (in the course of which I told
him of your visit, and what you had brought me), declared that I was the
only one of his servants whom he could trust, and found high office for
me, which kept me in close confidential communication with himself.
"About three years ago, on the death of his Prime Minister, he appointed
me to fill his place; and it was on this, that so many possibilities
occurred to me concerning which I dearly longed for your opinion, that I
wrote and asked you, if you could, to meet me personally or by proxy at
the statues, which I could reach on the occasion of my annual visit to my
mother--yes--and father--at Sunch'ston.
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