blaze. I brought away some ferns, and seeing a short-jointed bamboo, made a native get me some roots to carry away, and a young shoot. The original dress of these people seems to have been a broad belt of fine matting round the waist and a maro. They now cover the mat with European cloth, dyed yellow with yellow ochre. This is all over Vaté; they all paint the face black and red, and have for an ornament round the neck a pearl shell, a plate, willow pattern, a top of a Holloway's ointment pot, a tin cover. Many have bamboo combs in the hair with a pattern scratched upon them. Their noses are large and wide, the septum is pierced, and they carry in it a ground-down piece of shell, a piece of bone-one had a piece of plate-glass (thick) ground to a circle of five-eighths of an inch in diameter. Many had armlets of tortoise-shell fitting tight. As a rule the limbs and bodies are not well developed at all. Most of the men and women are ugly, but some are what we should call hideous. One dirty grotesque-looking wretch came near us, with a nose like one of the hideous Chinese lap-dogs. After talking we left the place. Messer sketched this house, called Rongavai, and also the Malavára, on the way down. At the latter I asked for one of the figures, and got the chief to give me one, a long thin one with a bad sound. The natives said at first, "No belong every man; he belong chief," but went off directly to ask for it for me and helped to root it out. The cutter's and galley's crews helped to carry it down. Reached the beach at 5.30, and were obliged to wade over a hundred yards of shore reef to launch the boat. The natives (five) slept on board.

May 2nd.-The cutter could not get off at all till 2 A.M., and my poor old ancestor got broken in two and lost its arms. I sent my five natives back to Malamé this morning. Some officers went up to the village, and at 8.15 all were back, and we weighed under sail and went away close hauled, passing Mataso or Two hills, on which canoes were lying, with a nice breeze. I got Bulibasi and Tevenok on the poop, and tried to get them to tell me where they lived, the names of the islands, and then the names

of the numerals by my fingers, but all was of no good, until at last I sent for my little ships (Tactic models), and laid down five, and Bulibasi went off like a rocket, and gave me the numerals up to

12.

**** From this we made a jump at nose and secured it, and then ran rapidly over the parts of the body. A great stand was made at man, but was secured at last triumphantly. Yes and no were a difficulty, and good was not secured, but come and go were got at with the help of Vatese. It was interesting to see how he jumped at some things at once with a smiling face, while others he gave up altogether. Pictures he could make little of, except those well coloured, and we could not get the idea of a house from him. Coco-palm was the only thing got from an uncoloured picture. The little wheezy peezy fellow was the most awake, though he only seemed to wish to curl himself in the sun and sleep. The weather changed during church from quite fine to squally and rain, and we profited by shifts to get well to windward, passing Tougariki at dark, and getting abreast of Lopevi at daylight.

May 3rd.-Very uncertain weather all day and heavy rain. Got in between Ambrym and Pentecost, and there under the land was a white schooner with a French flag. Of course it was the "Léonie," late "Mavis," and I sent for her master (an Englishman). He had an "Armement de Cabotage," and a "Permis de départ." So I respected the flag, and told him he had better go to Nounéa at once. He said, I heard that an order was to come out on the 1st of March that no vessel was to go to sea (from Nounéa) without a French captain, and so I went to sea before the 1st of March." He told me, and his log substantiates it, that he left twenty-seven men at Havannah Harbour, and had now twenty-six on board. His whole course is irregular. He said two of his men had deserted here. I said, “Then I suppose you detain them against their will?" "No!" he said; "but if I wasn't to force them to stop on board they would go directly, they change their minds so." "Then how do you recruit them?" I

* See Appendix.

said. "I pull along shore, I, or the mate, and buy some yams or what not, and then I offer them a knife or two knives, or a knife and a tomahawk to come, and they give it to their friends, who come down with them, and they come with me. The chiefs have nothing to do with it; they have very little power in these islands." The masters of the May Queen and of the Sybil had repeated exactly the same thing to me, so that the voluntary recruiting is all rubbish, and engagement is all nonsense. These people neither understand why they go, nor where, or what they are to do, or when return. They only care for the knife and the tomahawk. Without throwing dirt at either the planter in Queensland, or the master of the vessel or the agent, one may say, as between the planters and missionaries and their influence, that the natives learn the vices of civilisation from the plantation and the virtues from the mission. Were one to throw a boy into a public school, or still nearer the mark, a factory, without the influence of home or tutor, or even dame, where would a lad be? and where if sent to college with heads whose chief aim is to raise their conception of, and belief in, purity and charity?

I sent for this fellow's interpreter, whom he had taken on board a few days ago, and he came, and on reaching the deck was paralysed by fear, seeing so many people moving about, and couldn't move. Barnes led him along like a little girl, and he came creeping up, and then shivered all over and began to whimper. I sent for the little boy, but it was no good, he only got out, "He makey fight me." At last the man came and recognised this captain, who said that he had left the boy with Davies and the man with Young. The two natives looked at each other, and then the one from the schooner said Aroa, or something like that, and they instantly fell to talking. His face cleared up and all was right, though he still kept shivering. My fellow made a bite at his own arm with a point and expressive gesture at me, clearly meaning that the other thought he had been brought on board to be eaten. Between them all we clearly made out that these two fellows of mine came from a couple of

villages a few miles north of this south point of Pentecost, where there is a fair anchorage, says this master of the schooner.

I let him go, and then resolved to stand off for the night, as the homes of these two fellows were close to.

May 4th.-At 2 A.M. wore to northward. Got in with the land and made the natives point out, point by point, but it was 2 P.M. before we got opposite the place which they recognised as theirs. The island is composed of old, very old coral limestone. Crystals in veins occur, and a good quantity of stalagmitic deposit lies about on the beach. The rocks closely resemble those at Mango and at the south-west of Viti Levu, and have occasionally casts of recent shells. The vegetation is indescribably rank and dense, but cocoa-nuts stand in profusion right up to the highest parts, which may be 1,800 feet. Is the island rising or falling? One can't say. But certainly it is being undermined and dissolved, and carried away by the sea below and rain from above, and I should fancy, by the look of the vegetation actually overhanging the sea so that one cannot get along at high tide, that the crumbling away is going on pretty quick. Oh, the sweltering heat and damp! We landed at a chink in the rocks. The natives whom we had seen all day along the beach in parties of ten or twelve scampered along to meet us in a friendly way, and presently, as they came near, called out in tremendous excitement, Bulibasi! Bulibasi! and then, when they saw the little boy, Tevenok! Tevenok! and crowded around, seizing hold of Bulibasi's hands, and patting and caressing him. When he got out of the boat he pointed to me, and told them all, Man-i-wà ! Man-i-wà! Some of these were really good-looking and pleasinglooking, in the same "genre" as Bulibasi, and instantly reminded me of Fijians. These men wear a piece of string round the waist and a piece of matting, about six inches in width, as a maro. An old chief was there whom they called Turanga, like Fijians, and who seemed to hold aloof and keep silence. A little boy screamed at us to try and make us understand some story about the death of a man whose grave was by the beach with

stones over it and a couple of palms of some sort of which I don't know the quality. There were crotons, too, of a sort which I don't remember having seen before. Stanley went up the steep path which leads to the village, but I couldn't do it with my greasy shoes (though I afterwards, when too late, found an easier path), but he saw nothing worth notice. He got a bow and some well-made arrows.

These fellows had the nose pierced and bits of bamboo, or what not, in them. Two had their hair done like Tannese. bad fellows.

Not

May 5th.-Rain! Rain! Every and all day without ceasing. Ran to leeward of Santa Maria. Saw fires on the beach and people waving. Stood up to Vanua Lava, and made a couple of tacks in the evening. Everything very close. Boxing about all day and all night and no nearer to Mota.

May 6th.-Got steam at 3.30 A.M., and went on towards Port Patteson. Passing between Low Islands and the South Bluff, in spite of tide rips, which looked frightening, looked into the bay, and then stood over to Mota, and landed on W.N.W. side in a little nook, a boat's length long, which is handy enough, but not so good on the whole as the south side of a big rock, further north,

MOTA, N.W. 13'.

about one-third of a mile. A number of natives met us, among whom were women. The men all have frizzled but not woolly hair. We saw two or three very like New Zealanders in face and features. Stanley soon began a little vocabulary; we could not get to understand whether the missionaries were here or not, but

* See Appendix.

*