328 KE. 



is due to a parasitic fungus, and closely allied to or identical 

 with Pityriasis versicolor. Dr. Crosbie, StaiT-Surgeon of the 

 "Challenger," made a careful microscopical examination of it. 

 The disease is widely spread in Melanesia and Polynesia.* 



The men kept constantly scratching themselves violently, 

 and life can be hardly worth having in Great Ke Island. Yet 

 the disease is one easily cured. After all, the natives are no 

 worse off than were Cambridge under-graduates in the middle 

 of the seventeenth century, and they used to be nearly phy- 

 sicked to death into the bargain, absolutely in vain.f 



The men begged for all kinds of things, and especially spirits 

 and tobacco. One of the boats had well-made pottery, nicely 

 ornamented with patterns in red, for barter. The men, as did 

 also the Malays at Dobbo, used a slight click with the tongue, 

 accompanied by a very slow shaking of the head, to express 

 astonishment. 



We anchored off Little Ke Island. Several boats came off 

 paddling to a different but very similar chant. The men being 

 ship-builders by profession, were delighted with the ship, and 

 ran all over it and climbed into the rigging. 



A dance was got up on the quarter-deck. The drum was 

 beaten by two performers and a song accompanied it, but 

 there was no clapping of hands, as in Fiji. The whole mode 

 of dancing was absolutely different, and the attitudes of the 

 dancer were alone sufficient to have told one that one was 

 amongst Malays, and not Melanesians or Polynesians. 



The dance, in which only two or three performers danced at 

 a time, consisted of a very slowly executed- series of poses of 

 the body and limbs. There was no exact keeping of time to 

 the accompaniment nor unison of action between the dancers. 

 The hands and arms during the action were slowly moved 

 from behind to the front, the palms being held forwards and 

 the thumbs stretched straight out from them. 



In another dance a motion, as of pulling at a rope, was used. 

 The chant to one dance was the words " uela a uela." There 

 was also a dance of two performers with pieces of sticks, to 

 represent a combat with swords. The whole was closely like 

 the dancing of the Lutaos which we saw later at Zamboangan 

 in the Philippine Islands, but not so elaborate. 



The ship moved to an anchorage off the small town of Ke 

 Dulan. The houses were all raised on posts, except the Mahom- 

 medan Mosque, which building shows a curious development 



* See Tilbury Fox, M.D., " On the Tokelau Ringworm and its Fungus." 

 The "Lancet,"' 1874, p. 304. 



+ John Strypes' " Letters to his Mother, Scholse Academicse," p. 293. 

 Christopher Wordsworth, Cambridge, 1872. 



