CHAPTER XI 
Letter XVIII. Marbiag. — Banks Island — Jervis Island — Inquisitive 
children — The Wongi — An excess of riches — A pas-de-seul — The skeleton 
in the tree — Disagreeable acquaintances. 
Letter XIX. Thursday Island. — Sea-sick — A splendid farewell. 
Marbiag. 
YOU probably won’t know where Marbiag is, so I had 
better tell you that its English name is Jervis Island — 
the most northern of this Torres Straits group, and 
only thirty miles from New Guinea. I wish I thought 
that this fact would make your heart relent, but, alas ! 
you extracted my promise not to go there, and I can 
only content myself by looking at the long array of 
dug-out canoes which come from New Guinea, where 
they make and ornament them better than these 
islanders, who trade there for them. 
We left Thursday Island early yesterday morning 
with a strong head wind and the tide against us, and 
what a tide runs here ! After struggling long in vain 
to make enough headway before it got dark, we decided 
to anchor for the night close to Banks Island, just off 
one of the native villages. We had quite made up our 
minds to sleep on shore there, but it was altogether too 
uninviting, and we broke through our first resolution 
after seeing the natives, who all seemed to have 
colds or sore eyes ; the unwholesome-looking children 
being covered with horrid-looking sores. The women 
L 
