52 
Dorav village, Gaua (Kitevut Bay) September 30, 1972 
A quiet setting— a flaming sunset— a staggeringly beautiful cove 
off the seldom visited northern coast of Gaua, a coast of immense beauty 
with its black and white sand beaches, steep cliffs and small stream 
valleys entering the sea« We have just made a late after supper visit 
to Dorav village where only 14 people now live in four households. We met 
most of them including the four men of the village. They claim that 
although On tar, just up the coast, speaks the same language as Qetegabi, 
the next village along the coast, some generations ago they spoke a 
separate language. They quickly affirm that although they can understand 
the Kuru and Beam language, they do not speak it and insist that it is 
a different language. The same applies to that language spoken by Ontar 
and Qetegabi. 
Few villages in the world are as beautifully situated as the three 
we have seen today; Kuru, Beam and Dorav. 
Dorav lies on a high point between a beach of pitch black sand onto 
which a stream opens and a white sandy beach. The clean black sand is 
extremely heavy and appears to be an . The village is far too 
small to be of great interest to me. It is also extremely isolated since 
it is a good days walk from Kuru and near-by Ontar has only some 30-40 
people. 
Jean points out to me again the extreme depopulation that has gone on 
here in the last 150 years, particularly in the first half of the last 
century. All these groups we have viisted today are remnants or all that 
remains of much larger groups that have almost completely disappeared. 
These small reminants come from groups that were very much larger than 
they are today. With such a sparse population on shore I was not sorry 
to have to be on shipboard tonight. I would find the surviving remnants 
too small j I fear, to provide the range of personalities and human con- 
tacts I so enjoy in larger villages. 
Dispensary Neriniuman village, Mota Lava October 1, 1972 
We have used the day to locate the chronic disease patients and those 
with the degenerative diseases, and the defective patients on the island, 
by making a long walking tour of the island with Stanley, the Fiji-trained 
doctor who had the dispensary here for twelve years. He is himself a man 
from Hiu Island in the Torres, and he plans to go with us there, but we 
have not yet solved the problem of getting him back here from there. The 
possiblility that the M.V . Selwyn from the Lolowai Mission on Aoba or the 
British Euphrosvne II may do the job for us, picking him up at Hiu, remains, 
but the necessary arrangements are not yet firmly made. Stanley himself 
may prefer to remain at Hiu for a while. 
