much of his time. His
post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no
inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the
poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external
advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All
the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very
few servants. The one here had, besides a teacher from Malekula,
an old native who had quarrelled with his chief and separated from
his clan. The good man was very anxious to marry, but no girl would
have him, as he had had two wives, and had, quite without malice,
strangled his second wife by way of curing her of an illness. I was
reminded of this little episode every time I looked at the man's long,
bony fingers.

One day a native asked me for medicine for his brother. I tried to find
out the nature of the ailment, and decided to give him calomel, urging
his brother to take it to him at once. The man had eaten a quarter of
a pig all by himself, but, of course, it was said that he had been
poisoned. His brother, instead of hurrying home, had a little visit
with his friends at the coast, until it was dark and he was afraid to
go home through the bush alone; so he waited till next morning, when
it was too late. The man's death naturally made the murder theory
a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut,
with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour,
all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned
strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across
the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from
running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the
body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul
from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the
gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war,
which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure.

The Messrs. Th. had been kind enough to invite me to go on a recruiting
trip to Maevo, the most north-easterly island of the group. Here I
found a very scanty population, showing many traces of Polynesian
admixture in appearance and habits. The weather was nasty and our
luck at recruiting poor, so that after a fortnight we returned to
Hog Harbour. I went to Port Olry to my old priest's house, and a few
days later Mr. Th. came in his cut