Mrs Walker Agnew Crescent Stranraer July 26th 1860 My dear brother The accounts in the papers are becoming quite alarming regarding this outbreak in New Zealand and that the loss of property has been enormous at Taranaki. I feel rather in a mystery about the whole affair. The local papers give such varied accounts and I have no access to the Times which is the most authentic paper to rely upon in critical statements of that kind. For months I have put off writing fully expecting that you would be on your way home but alas I fear that expectation must for the present be