o the veranda,
we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the
narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance
behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs
and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders
approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded
and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda,
then one of them whispers a few words in broken "biche la mar,"
describing what he wants to buy--knives, cartridges, powder, tobacco,
pipes, matches, calico, beads. "All right," says Mr. Ch., and some of
the men bring up primitive baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, filled with
coprah or bunches of raw cocoa-nuts. All of them, especially the women,
have carried great loads of these things from their villages in the
interior on the poorest paths, marching for days.

The baskets are weighed and the desired goods handed to the
head-man. Here the whites make a profit of 200-300 per cent., while on
the other islands, where there is more competition, they have to be
satisfied with 30 per cent. Each piece is carefully examined by the
natives: the pipes, to see if they draw, the matches, whether they
strike, etc., while the crowd behind follows every movement with the
greatest attention and mysterious whispers, constantly on the watch
for any menace to safety. The lengthy bargaining over, the delegation
turns away and the whole crowd disappears. In the nearest thicket they
sit down and distribute the goods--perhaps a dozen boxes of matches,
a few belts, or some yards of calico, two pounds of tobacco, and twenty
pipes, a poor return, indeed, for their long journey. Possibly they
will spend the night in the neighbourhood, under an overhanging rock,
on the bare stone, all crowded round a fire for fear of the spirits
of the night.

Sometimes, having worked for another planter, they have a little
money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as
a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite
unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time,
except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally
a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In
that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies
them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering
them other services. On the plantations they are