A Scotch Surgeons Divelling in Pwjnlpet. 561 



huts thatched with bamboo and pahn leaves. This was a small 

 colony of whites, whom a singular freak of destiny seemed to 

 have cast away upon these islands, where they earned their 

 subsistence as wood-cutters, smiths, fishermen, &c. They call 

 their settlement Rei. The first hut we entered was inhabited 

 by a Scotchman, who called himself ^'Dr. Cook," and prac- 

 tised as a physician. He had lived 26 years on the island. 

 His dwelling consisted of three large apartments, which up to 

 a certain height were shut off" from each other by thin 

 wooden walls, so that the air could circulate freely over-head 

 throughout the entire length of the hut. Everything was 

 neat and orderly : in the first room, which apparently was 

 used as a surgery, stood a number of medicine bottles duly 

 labelled, and crucibles, which at the very first glance revealed 

 the avocation of the possessor. Cook, who seemed far past the 

 half century, with pale, faded, expressionless features, and a 

 long silver-grey beard, clothed in a coarse woollen jacket, and 

 with the huge, broad-brimmed, worn-out straw-hat pulled 

 low upon his wrinkled forehead, had quite caught the listless, 

 motionless deportment of the natives. Nothing roused him, 

 nothing surprised him ; it took considerable time to elicit from 

 him any reply to our questions. The other white settlers in 

 the adjoining islands were not much more communicative ; all 

 showed in their conduct a certain embarrassment, which left 

 little doubt that theirs had not been an altogether blameless 

 life in former days. Most of them were surrounded by a 

 number of native wives, who had covered their bodies with a 



VOL. II. 2 O 



