peculiar sweet taste, which seems to relieve thirst better than anything else. On many of these islands no fresh water is found, and the natives live entirely on this juice, which of course in such a climate is forthcoming all the year round.

One of my boat's crew, a boy belonging to this island, had had himself photographed in Brisbane. It was a very second-rate photograph, the sort of thing one used to get framed and glazed for a shilling at the Crystal Palace, but Sir Joshua Reynolds himself never gained more sincere praise for his best portrait. It was handed round and wondered at both back and front; in fact I believe many of the islanders thought it was alive, and the lucky boy whom it represented, though remarkably ugly by nature, actually began to give himself airs on his good looks; and I found him some time afterwards admiring himself and pulling up his shirt collar before a pocket looking-glass, evidently thinking that he could compare very favourably with his white master.

At last, however, we entered on an open green space, and found ourselves on the scene of the festivities. A huge hollow log had been scooped out till it was quite thin, and the ends filled up; at this was seated the chief musician, with a piece of

stick in each hand, while the dancers stood in long single file, one behind the other, ready to proceed at the first tap of the drum. They were all painted and had their hair dressed with feathers; and the word being given, they started in a sort of slow march, or minuet step, keeping beautiful time, and whistling shrilly in chorus; the drum beat faster and faster, and they stamped with more energy, till the perspiration streamed off them. This had not gone on long, before my boys, who had been restlessly shifting about, first on one leg and then on the other, as the well-remembered roll of the drums struck their ears, could restrain themselves no longer, but threw away their arms, rushed in and took their places, while R and I, not wishing to remain altogether wall-flowers, brought up the procession, singing at the top of our voices. A little of such exercise, however, in latitude 13° 14' south goes a long way, and we soon had to return to our shady tree and begin again at the cocoa-nuts; where our black friends came round and listened attentively, while R— struck up a comic song, and they caught up the refrain of the chorus, and made the old jungle of Motu Lava ring with the unaccustomed strains of Champagne Charley,' or 'Slap bang, Here we are again.' Music is an inexhaustible

NATIONAL DANCING.

85

pleasure to all islanders, but especially to these Motu Lava men, who seem to spend their whole time over it, and whose ears are astonishingly quick at catching a new tune. Their own songs are in a high falsetto, and the words seem to be invented on the spur of the moment. Having once found out R's powers of singing, they kept him at it, poor fellow ! till nature gave in, and his sailor-songs will, I fancy, be long remembered there. Often during our subsequent passage to Queensland did I start all the different natives on board at their national dances; and the scene of babel that ensued while one tribe jumped and howled, another stamped and shrieked, and a third whistled plaintively, used to drive the mate engaged on his navigation nearly mad, and he would rush frantically on deck with a volley of execrations which only added to the noise.

Several of the men we had brought from Brisbane to this island volunteered to return with me, and divided all their newly-acquired wealth amongst their people, giving every one his share of calico and beads; and the scene of crying that ensued amongst the women, when the whole procession-men, women, children, recruits and all-arrived on the beach, I shall never forget. However the best of friends must part sooner or later, and after having faith

fully promised to go and see them again in two moons at the latest, and having been offered as much land and power as I liked if I would settle there for good, we shoved off, having at last got our full complement of men, and said good-bye to the only island of the South Seas in which I could get rid of the continual uneasy feeling that someone was aiming a spear at me from behind a tree.

Urepara para- Mark day '-Sea-sickness-A soft Answer'-More Recruits-Cotton-growing on Tanna-Buying Land—Yams— Tanna-Bread-fruit-Two Styles of Civilisation-EarthquakesIsland Quadrupeds..

A TRIP to Ureparapara, one of the Bank's Islands, and inhabited by a tribe speaking the same language, to land another native, completed the outwardbound part of my cruise, and we prepared for a long beat to the southward against the S. E. trades, homeward bound. We happened to arrive in Ureparapara Bay on what they call mark day,' which is a ceremony that answers to our old border custom of 'riding the marches.' Every tribe turns out dressed