ster, 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.

"I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, confiding them to Bishop
Kahabuka, who is just such another as St. Hanky. He tells me that our
father was a very old and dear friend of his--but of course I did not say
anything about his being my own father. I only inquired about a Mr.
Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as a supernatural being. The
Bishop said it was, "Oh, so very dreadful," and he felt it all the more
keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the means of my father's
going to Erewhon, by giving him the information that enabled him to find
the pass over the range that bounded the country.

"I did not like the man, but I thought I could trust him with a letter,
which it now seems I could not do. This third letter I have given him
with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for his new Cathedral, to be
paid as soon as I get an answer from you.

"We are all well at Sunch'ston; so are my wife and eight children--five
sons and three daughters--but the country is at sixes and sevens. St.
Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse. Dr. Downie has become very
lethargic. I can do less against St. Hankyism than when I was a private
man. A little indiscretion on my part would plunge the country in civil
war. Our engineers and so-called men of science are sturdily begging for
endowments, and steadily claiming to have a hand in every pie that is
baked from one end of the country to the other. The missionaries are
buying up all our silver, and a change in the relative values of gold and
silver is in progress of which none of us foresee the end.

"The King and I both think that annexation by England, or a British
Protectorate, would be the saving of us, for we have no army worth the
name, and if you do not take us over some one else soon will. The King
has urged me to send for you. If you come (do! do! do!) you had better
come by way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly communication with
Southampton. If you will write me that you are coming I will meet you at
the port, and bring you with me to our own capital, where the King will
be overjoyed to see you."