XII DARKNESS AND REST 161 
The air was heavy with the echoes of a hundred 
songs. Every tree has its various inhabitant, every 
plant and flower its insect. One generation goes, 
another comes, nature is never still, and each season 
brings its own fresh world with it. We scrambled back 
to camp over the cliffs, toppling over stones and sliding 
over slippery grass. On the way we picked some 
papaw apples, and under the shade of a large eugenia 
tree we sat down cross-legged and made a feast off 
them and bananas. 
The sun was just setting as we came back, and 
through the hazy vista of palm trees we could see the 
dusky figures of the natives moving to and fro in 
the flickering light of the fires, which burnished up the 
tall stems of the bamboos like shafts of molten metal, 
and in golden threads crept through and outlined the 
drooping fronds of palms and the thatched roofs. And 
now the boats are made fast in the landing places, and 
over the merry blaze of the fires the natives take their 
evening meal. Darkness closes over, fold upon fold, the 
gloomy world from above, shut out from behind the 
clouds, and over the night comes the drone-like sound 
of natives singing. One by one they steal away until 
only Mrs. Jardine and I are left ; and now to rest, to 
the sounds of murmuring waves and sighing of winds in 
the palms above. 
Not many years ago, this island boasted of being 
the principal among those inhabited by cannibals, and 
the old men and women still bear in their bodies 
the traces of their dreadful customs, being quite piebald ; 
a horrible condition caused by eating the putrid flesh 
of their victims, the poison from which produces this 
discoloration. They are changed in their habits now, 
and, the day after we arrived being Sunday, they held 
their services in their church, one at six in the morning, 
M 
