ULAKUA. 265 



whom he had had ouly bad reports, and begged us not 

 to go shooting roiuid about this viUage, but to make for an- 

 other where he was known. After having lost nearly half 

 an houi' in conferring, we returned to onv boat, and went 

 and landed on a nice coral beach near a village situated to 

 the left and facing the first village, where we went ashore. 

 The island of Ulakua is low and uniformly flat, not the 

 least eminence being visible. The shore, as far as I could 

 see, is very rough, with coral rock in most places. There 

 is a clifi" along the shore some 15 or 20 feet high, fiom 

 which huge blocks of coral have been detached in many 

 places. The island seems to be more of coral formation 

 than any I have seen, excej^t Savage Island. It has evidently 

 been upheaved, and probably rather roughly too. I picked 

 up on the beach a great many pieces of flint scattei-ed about 

 among the broken up coral ; one wonders how it got there.- 

 I could find no lava or other kinds of rock, and there does 

 not appear to be any great depth of soil. The cocoa-nut 

 trees, however, iwv in great profusion, grow very high, and 

 yield large quantities of fruit, of which we had our sliare, 

 the natives giving us on our way as much of it as we coidd 

 possibly desire. On that part of the beacli where we landed 

 we found a great number of fish-stakes put up in a curious 



covered with a black varnish, one end of whicli was engraved with a 

 flower of nine petals enclosed in a Vandyke border, the incised parts 

 being filled with wliite paint. Both are now in the Christy Col- 

 lection, together with a larger and more ornanjented one which Mr. 

 Franks, of the British Museum, was fortunate enough to meet with 

 at Hamburg, and which no doubt belongs to this group. 



