well. Did I say yesterday that I went a quarter of a mile or less up from the mouth in my gig, and then found a regular rapid running over the pebbles, the difference of level above and below being quite a foot; and this is the principal arm, the whole country showing that the newer land is about this mouth, and chiefly west of it. The bed of the stream has pebbles of every variety of volcanic origin. The east side, where I landed, runs out close to the coral rocks. I went up a cliff of coral 400 feet, and got on to a table land, all coral, on which I walked for a mile. On this side are many former hat islands and "castles," like that on Maré. There can be no mistaking the formation, and it seems to be, as I supposed, that all the eastern coast is of this formation. I got the names Azarao for the eastern promontory, and Tabasigo for the western, also Nanutu for the hills to the south; but they all persist in calling the shore here Santo. My guide called the river Yona, which looks strangely like Jordan. We had a sad accident: a stoker was unfortunately drowned this afternoon in trying to swim across the river while away with a seining party. Three started, and one turned back. The midshipman called to this man not to venture, but he went on, and was sucked down by the eddy. The women here, by the way, knock out two front teeth. Hastings found a boy who had been with Mr. Hebblewhite, and spoke English very fairly, and said that the best anchorage is in the south-west corner of the bay, and that five mer have gone lately to Queensland from a village there. He says that the Azarao people are all fighting. I stepped a public-house by the way, which they call hamal, 75 feet long and 12 feet wide on the ground, about 12 feet high. All of bamboo ; nothing in it but two little earthenware pots and some rough trenchers. A kindly people, but not a very interesting place. The land is good, and probably there will some day be a large plantation here.

August 7th.-Got away under steam at 11 A.M., and stood out to the end of Cape Quiros and its off-lying island to the east. The tables and the four or five terraces which form them are most

A

distinct. I put the table at A to be 1200 feet high. It is not over that, or under 1000 feet. In like manner the two tables, which in a former age were hat islands, are from 800 to 1000 feet. They look into the bay. I think that the occurrence of these may very well be explained in this way. On the eastern shores of the land long banks may be formed by rocks or debris either under water or above, and then submerged. The coral polyp would build extensively on these, and great tables would result.

On the western shore the mountains are steep and bare, and the insect would only build a narrow ledge, when the upheaval would

bring the structure within the destructive power of the waves, and effectually scale off the shell of coral rock, except at points where the insect would have gotten a greater hold and made a wider ledge, which would then resist the power of the wave.

St Philip & St James Bay

This

Eralado

Espiritu
Santo.

exactly agrees with the facts as I have seen them. I have seen coral shores wherever dots appear here, and the highest mountains are always dead to leeward.

August 8th.-Off Santa Maria in the morning, and tacked at 8, close to Vanua Lava: again at 12, under Santa Maria, and stood right through up to the bay south of Port Patteson. Standing to and fro all night.

August 9th.-Landed at 7.30 A.M. at Mota, and found no one. I got some rocks from the cliff side at Mota, where pieces of volcanic stone are bedded in the coral, which has grown all around them. This is a compact coral and a very compact volcanic stone. Got on board by 9 A. M., and filled. Mota Lava seems to be the same as Arā-ā. The low level around Vanua Lava is coral, and like that round Mota is about sixty or eighty feet above the sea, rising to 150 feet further back.

August 10th.-Saw Vanikoro (Santa Cruz group) at daylight, about fifteen miles off, and ran down. Got into Tevai Bay quite neatly at 9.15, in twenty-one fathoms, as near the middle of Ocili anchorage as possible. We passed a patch of nine fathoms, and got a cast of twelve fathoms in the passage, but saw no signs of the two-fathom place whatever. Many pieces of coral stand up on the reef. It seems to me quite likely that this may be the first sign of an upheaval succeeding the depression. The coral of such pieces is old and worn, and, moreover, the mangrove surrounds the shore; and I don't see how this could be the case were the land generally falling. However, what looks very like continued falling is that the most part of the flats seem covered with volcanic pebbles of large size, with a coating of mud. There can be no question, however, that the lumps above water are coral.

I took Perry in the galley in P.M., and went round Direction Island, finding a landing as I expected. The people all escaped to the main across the joining reef, poor creatures, laden with household goods apparently. I landed after calling "Omai' repeatedly, and looked into several of the six or eight houses.

One, which was oblong, and had side walls four feet high, was evidently a public-house. The others were perhaps not quite so high, and had a semicircular end, indifferently pointed, but generally inshore, the door being beachwards. This end was generally

cut off by a wooden sill, four or six inches high. In the centre of the apse were eight to twelve black stones, some little columns of basalt, some flat pieces, and some large round pebbles. Some big whorls lay as ornaments.

On the left, as one faced this little

assemblage, was always a little cane bench. I couldn't think what this meant, till in one hut I found a child's skull upon the stool, well smeared with yellow earth. Besides a few old bags and mats, a bow, and the hafts of adzes, there was absolutely nothing in the village. Everything had been removed. At quite one end, and at the last of all the houses, was a roof without walls, but with side posts, and under it a quantity of skulls around some upright stones, but no bones of any sort, and no lower jaws. I conclude from all this that this is again a worship of ancestors, household