ve not changed very much since I was here last,
it's like that you'll have a chance o' seeing a little for yourself
before long."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE SANDAL-WOOD PARTY--NATIVE CHILDREN'S GAMES SOMEWHAT SURPRISING--
DESPERATE AMUSEMENTS SUDDENLY AND FATALLY BROUGHT TO A CLOSE--AN OLD
FRIEND RECOGNISED--NEWS--ROMATA'S MAD CONDUCT.

Next day the wood-cutting party went ashore again, and I accompanied
them as before. During the dinner-hour I wandered into the woods alone,
being disinclined for food that day. I had not rambled far when I found
myself unexpectedly on the seashore, having crossed a narrow neck of
land which separated the native village from a large bay. Here I found
a party of the islanders busy with one of their war-canoes, which was
almost ready for launching. I stood for a long time watching this party
with great interest, and observed that they fastened the timbers and
planks to each other very much in the same way in which I had seen Jack
fasten those of our little boat. But what surprised me most was its
immense length, which I measured carefully, and found to be a hundred
feet long; and it was so capacious that it could have held three hundred
men. It had the unwieldy outrigger and enormously high stern-posts
which I had remarked on the canoe that came to us while I was on the
Coral Island. Observing some boys playing at games a short way along
the beach, I resolved to go and watch them; but as I turned from the
natives who were engaged so busily and cheerfully at their work, I
little thought of the terrible event that hung on the completion of that
war-canoe.

Advancing towards the children, who were so numerous that I began to
think this must be the general playground of the village, I sat down on
a grassy bank under the shade of a plantain-tree to watch them. And a
happier or more noisy crew I have never seen. There were at least two
hundred of them, both boys and girls, all of whom were clad in no other
garments than their own glossy little black skins, except the maro, or
strip of cloth, round the loins of the boys, and a very short petticoat
or kilt on the girls. They did not all play at the same game, but
amused themselves in different groups.

One band was busily engaged in a game exactly similar to our blind man's
buff. Another set were walking on stilts, which raised the children
three feet from the ground. They were very expert at this amusement,
and seldom tumble