peculiar sport and requires a special
enthusiasm to afford pleasure for any length of time. The birds are
extremely shy and generally sit on the tops of the highest trees
where a European can hardly discover them. The natives, however,
are very clever in detecting them, but when they try to show you the
pigeon it generally flies off and is lost; and if you shoot it, it is
hard to find, even for a native. The natives themselves are capable
of approaching the birds noiselessly and unseen, because of their
colour, so as to shoot them from a short distance. My pigeon-shooting
usually consisted in waiting for several hours in the forest, with
very unsatisfactory results, so that I soon gave it up.

We were all unsuccessful on this particular day, but it ended most
gaily with a dance at the house of a French planter.

We slept on board, rocked softly by the ship, against which the waves
plashed in cosy whispering. The sky was bright with stars, but below
decks it was dark and stuffy. Now and then a big fish jumped out of the
black sea, otherwise it was quiet, dull and gloomy as a dismal dream.

Next day we rose early and went shooting again. Probably because we
had been given the best wishes of an old French lady the result was as
unsatisfactory as the evening before. We then resumed our journey in
splendid weather, with a stiff breeze, and flying through blue spaces
on the bright waves, we rapidly passed several small islands, sighted
"Monument Rock," a lonely cliff that rises abruptly out of the sea
to a height of 130 m., and arrived late in the afternoon at Maei,
our destination.

CHAPTER II

MAEI, TONGOA, EPI AND MALEKULA

Maei is a small island whose natives have nearly all disappeared, as
is the case on most of its neighbours. There is one small plantation,
with the agent of which the Resident had business. After we had passed
the narrow inlet through the reef, we landed, to find the agent in a
peculiar, half-mad condition. He pretended to suffer from fever, but
it was evident that alcohol had a good deal to do with it, too. The
man made strange faces, could hardly talk and was quite unable to
write; he said the fever had deprived him of the power of using his
fingers. He was asked to dinner on board, and as he could not speak
French nor the Resident English, negotiations were carried on in biche
la mar, a language in which it is impossible to talk about anything
but the simplest matters of everyday lif