stops, crosses her hands, pressing her breast. Poor thing! not
courage enough; so, lightning speed, back. It is evident the old ladies
object to the younger ones attempting, and they are themselves too
frightened. Another young damsel about nine or ten years old comes out,
runs, halts, walks cat-like, lest the touch of her feet on the sand
should waken me from my reverie; another halt, holds her chest, lest the
spirit should take its flight or the pattering heart jump right out. I
fear it was beyond the slight patter then, and had reached the stentorian
thump of serious times. On; a rush; well done! She picks cloth and
beads up.

I have gained my point, and will soon have the crowds--no need to wait so
long to have the baits picked up now, and, after a few more such
temptings, it is done. I am besieged by the noisest crowd I have ever
met, and am truly glad to escape on board the boat. We went to the
vessel, and brought her round to the west side, where we anchored, and I
again landed. Crowds met me on the beach, but no men. I gave my beads
indiscriminately, and soon there was a quarrel between the old ladies and
young ones. The latter were ordered off, and, because they would not go,
I must go. The old ladies insisted on my getting into the boat, and,
being now assisted by the few men we met in the canoe, I thought it
better to comply. Long after we left the beach we heard those old
cracked, crabbed voices anathematizing the younger members of that
community. I suppose I was the first white mortal to land on that sacred
shore, and I must have been to them a strange object indeed.

I am fully convinced that this is the Woman's Land, and can easily
account for its being called so by stray canoes from the westward.

After leaving the island, we steamed round to the westward of the small
islands in Amazon Bay, where we intended to spend a quiet Sabbath after a
hard week's work, and previous to beginning another. After anchoring,
canoes with men and boys kept crossing from the mainland, and all day
Sunday it was the same. They halted at the islands, and with the next
tide went on to Toulon. Landing on the Saturday evening to shoot
pigeons, we met several natives, and learned that their plantations were
on the mainland, and that they crossed to plant and fight, taking their
boys with them. Afterwards at Aroma, they told me they left their wives
and daughters at home in charge of a few men, whilst the major