"The
trees that have been left standing in the clearing," says the diary,
"are of immense size, really majestic, with creepers winding about
their trunks and orchids growing in the forks of their branches. These
great trees are alive with birds, which chatter at certain hours of
the night and morning with rich, throaty voices. Though they do not
exactly sing, the sound they make is very musical and pretty.
Yesterday Ben [the man of all work] took his gun and went into the
bush to shoot. He returned with some small birds like parrots, which
were almost bursting with fat. I felt some compunction about eating
birds that suggested cages and swings and stands, but as we had
nothing else to eat was fain to cook them, and a very excellent dish
they made. I have read somewhere that the dodo and a relative of his
called the 'tooth-billed pigeon' are still to be found on this
island. It would be delightful to possess a pet dodo."[37]

[Footnote 37: "The one surviving species of dodo, the
manume'a, a bird about the size of a small moor-hen,
exists in Samoa. It has only recovered its present
feeble powers of flight since cats were introduced in
the island. Its dark flesh is extremely
delicious."--From Balfour's _Life of Robert Louis
Stevenson_.]

Although their stay in the little lodge was to be but temporary, it
was like her to set to work to make it a pleasant abode even for the
short time that they were to be there. "What we most dislike about our
house," she says, "is the chilly, death-like aspect of the colors in
which it is painted--black and white and lead-color. So we unearthed
from our boxes some pieces of _tapa_[38] in rich shades of brown and
nailed them on the walls, using pieces of another pattern for
bordering, and at once the whole appearance of the room was changed.
Over the door connecting the two rooms we fastened a large flat piece
of pink coral, a present given me by Captain Reid when we were on the
_Equator_. We have had the carpenter put up shelves in one corner of
the room and on two sides of one of the windows. I also had him nail
some boards together in the form of a couch, upon which I have laid a
mattress covered by a shawl. On the table an old pink cloth is spread,
and when we light the lamp and set the little Japanese burner to
smoking buhach--for, alas, there are mosquitoes--we feel quite snug
and home