s emphatic in cursing the
bloodthirstiness of the natives, but while we were going home, he
told me that Mr. N. had kidnapped thirty-four natives at that very
place a year before, so that the behaviour of the others was quite
comprehensible. From that moment I gave up trying to form an opinion
on any occurrence of the kind without having carefully examined
the accounts of both parties. One can hardly imagine how facts are
distorted here, and what innocent airs people can put on who are really
criminals. I have heard men deplore, in the most pathetic language,
acts of cruelty to natives, who themselves had killed natives in cold
blood for the sake of a few pounds. It requires long and intimate
acquaintance with the people to see at all clearly in these matters,
and for a Resident it is quite impossible not to be deceived unless
he has been on the spot for a year at least.

While waiting at Dip Point for an opportunity to cross to Pentecoste,
I saw the volcano in full activity, and one day it rained ashes,
so that the whole country was black as if strewn with soot, and the
eruptions shook the house till the windows rattled. I made a second
ascent of the mountain, but had such bad weather that I saw nothing
at all. We came back, black as chimney-sweeps from the volcanic
dust we had brushed off the bushes. I heard later that the extinct
eastern crater had unexpectedly broken out again, and that several
lava streams were flowing towards the coast.

Pentecoste, a long, narrow island running north and south, resembles
Maevo in shape. My host here was a missionary who seemed to connect
Christianity with trousers and other details of civilization. It was
sad to see how many quaint customs, harmless enough in themselves,
were needlessly destroyed. The wearing of clothes constitutes a
positive danger to health, as in this rainy climate the natives are
almost constantly soaked, do not trouble to change their wet clothes,
sleep all night in the same things and invariably catch cold. Another
source of infection is their habit of exchanging clothes, thus
spreading all sorts of diseases. That morals are not improved by
the wearing of clothes is a fact; for they are rather better in the
heathen communities than in the so-called Christian ones. It is to be
hoped that the time is not far off when people will realize how very
little these externals have to do with Christianity and morality; but
there is reason to fear that it will then b