ur were plainly visible even from
the deck of the yacht.

"Having landed, we went for a stroll, among neat houses and pretty
gardens, to the suspension-bridge over the river, followed by a crowd of
girls, all decorated with wreaths and garlands, and wearing almost the
same dress that we had seen at Tahiti--a coloured, long-sleeved, loose
gown reaching to the feet. The natives here appear to affect duller
colours than those we have lately been accustomed to--lilac, drab,
brown, and other dark prints being the favourite tints. Whenever I
stopped to look at a view, one of the girls would come behind me and
throw a _lei_ of flowers over my head, fasten it round my neck, and then
run away laughing, to a distance, to judge of effect. The consequence
was that, before the end of our walk, I had about a dozen wreaths of
various colours and lengths, hanging round me, till I felt almost as if
I had a fur tippet on, they made me so hot; and yet I did not like to
take them off, for fear of hurting the poor girls' feelings."

[Illustration: A GIRL OF TAHITI.]

Wherever she went Lady Brassey seems to have commanded special
attention; partly no doubt due to her own personal qualities, and partly
to the fact that English ladies are rare visitors in the Polynesian
islands--and especially an English lady, the wife of a member of
parliament, who sails round the world in her husband's yacht!

Lady Brassey made, of course, an excursion to the great volcano of
Kilauea, of which Miss Bird has furnished a singularly fine description.
Lady Brassey's sketch is not so elaborate or powerful or fully coloured,
but it has a charm of its own in its unassuming simplicity. Let us go
with her on a visit to the two craters, the old and the new.

And, first of all, we descend the precipice, 300 feet in depth, which
forms the wall of the original crater, but now blooming with a prodigal
vegetation. In many places the incline is so steep that zigzag flights
of wooden steps have been inserted here and there in the face of the
cliff in order to facilitate the descent. At the bottom we step on to a
surface of cold boiled lava, and even here, in every chink where a
little soil has collected, Nature asserts her robust vitality, and
delicate little ferns put forth their green fronds to feel the light. An
extraordinary appearance did that vast lava field present, contorted as
it was into every imaginable shape and form, according to the
temperature it had atta