ty to see in what
state of preservation it would alight. Down it came however on its two
feet, uttered a few oaths in a very modified tone of voice, and set
forth on the return journey to its mansion. Its wings being cut and its
gait in walking having been a circumstance apparently not thoroughly
calculated by its maker, it took about twenty-five minutes to get home
again. Now here is this remarkable point--that bird has never bitten me
since. When I have early breakfast she and the cat come down and join
me, and she sits on the back of my chair. When I am at work with the
door shut she sits outside and demolishes the door with that same beak
which was so recently reddened with my heart's blood--and in the evening
she does her business all over my clothes in the most friendly manner
in the world. I ought to add a word about the parrot and the cat. Three
cats were brought by Belle from Sydney. This one alone remains faithful
and domestic. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was Polly and
Maud over a piece of bacon. Polly stood on one leg, held the bacon in
the other, regarded Maudie with a secret and sinister look and very
slowly and quietly--far too quietly for the word I have to use--gnashed
her bill at her. Maudie came up quite close; there she stuck--she was
afraid to come nearer, to go away she was ashamed; and she assisted at
the final and very deliberate consumption of the bacon, making about as
poor a figure as a cat can make.

_Next day._--Date totally unknown, or rather it is now known but is
reserved because it would certainly prove inconsistent with dates
previously given. I went down about two o'clock in company with a couple
of chance visitors to Apia. It was smoking hot, not a sign of any wind
and the sun scorching your face. I found the great Haggard in hourly
expectation of Lady Jersey, surrounded by crowds of very indifferent
assistants, and I must honestly say--the only time I ever saw him
so--cross. He directed my attention to all the new paint, his own
handiwork he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just
fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same
time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle,
and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked
in oil, both from our own river.

This morning the overseer--the new overseer Mr. Austin Strong--went down
in charge of the pack-horses and a squad of men, himse