File 3 - ALS from Fearon Fallows, Cape Town.

Has been seriously ill again, and has appointed Whittaker and Bushby executors of his will. Has not managed even one third of the tasks he had hoped to achieve in the last year. His temporary observatory is a small wooden house, just large enough to contain his transit instruments, clock and circle. His doctors attribute his poor health to exposure to the night air in the wooden house. Once a building is erected properly constructed for observing, he should no longer suffer attacks. There have been no arrivals from England for two months, and he has not seen a newspaper since the account of the King's visit to Scotland. They have had a good harvest. Compares the quality and price of food unfavourably with that in England. Describes the state of religion in the Colony as low, with only the Mahometan prospering. The clergy of the English and Dutch churches are similar to those in Europe. The Methodists and Independents have had little success though the inns where travellers stop are well supplied with their 'trash and lies'. Criticises a representative of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, who keeps up the dignity of the Church by doing nothing, is affronted by being called a missionary, yet is happy to receive £300 a year for his 'arduous exertions'. Asks for news of Blackburn.