82 Concerning SoidJi Sea Islands iv 



of interwoven palm leaves, very comfortable, with 

 lots of nice brown women and girls about, jolly and 

 clean and well dressed, and innumerable dogs, cats, 

 gigantic pigs, and chickens. It was situated on the 

 edge of a lovely circular lagoon, about two miles 

 across, of the brightest green, with a ring of cocos 

 encircling it. We pulled across this to a white 

 sandy spit of elevated coral with a few coco -trees 

 and scrubby bushes on it, and under these bushes 

 we found numbers of tropic -birds, with splendid 

 long scarlet tails, sitting on their nests. The young 

 ones squawked, and croaked, and wobbled about, but 

 seemed, like their parents, too stupid to know fear. 

 There was no necessity to shoot the old birds ; we 

 had only to peer under the bushes and pick them 

 up. They bit, and pecked, and squawked, but made 

 not the slightest effort to escape. Then we went to 

 Raritonga in Cook's Group — a lovely green, peaked 

 island with the usual wealth of cocos, and moored 

 in a perfect saucer of coral. 



* There was a vile, cockneyfied church there, but we 

 had a most wonderful reception from the chiefs, who 

 gave us all kinds of things, from a bull to a handful 

 of coffee ; but I don't think that there was a man, 

 woman, or child on the island who did not give us 

 something. They crowned us with crowns of riva- 

 riva, and covered us with kisses, and mats, and belts, 

 and all manner of strange things, and danced round 

 us till we were dizzy. Pem. looked like a cross 

 between the youthful Bacchus and the Eddystone 



