2 
508 FESTIVAL PROVISIONS. 
vitation which with regret I was prevented ac- 
cepting by the large size of my ship. 
I was glad however that Kadu had settled 
in Aur, as I hoped that the animals and plants 
with which I had enriched these islands would 
flourish under his care; and I learnt from Rarik 
that when he was a short time before in Aur, on 
a visit to his father, they had propagated, and 
were doing well. Swine and goats already 
formed part of their festival provisions, and 
Rarik had himself partaken of such a feast. 
I rejoiced in this information, and in the pro- 
mise it afforded, that through my means the 
time may be approaching when the barbarous | 
custom of sacrificing the third or fourth child 
of every marriage, from fear of famine, may 
wholly cease. 
The cat was the only animal of those I had 
left at Otdia which remained there; and it was 
no longer of the domestic species; it had become 
very numerous and entirely wild, but as yet had 
occasioned no sensible diminution in the number 
of rats. It may be hoped, however, that as the 
cats have no other food, those voracious pests 
of the gardens may at length be exterminated. 
