210 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
when the waving branches above our heads 
ceased their soughing for a moment or two, 
we heard from seaward a faint murmuring 
sound that we knew was the voice of the ocean 
borne to us on the breeze. Far down below us 
we saw through an opening in the forest the 
thatched houses of the village, and our thoughts 
went back to the kindly, honest-hearted people 
who dwelt there. To the northward of us was 
hilly, undulating country, and from the sides of 
the lesser hills we saw clouds of smoke ascend¬ 
ing, showing that the men of the bush villages 
were at work clearing their yam plantations. 
It was a scene like to many such that may be 
viewed almost anywhere in the high moun¬ 
tainous isles of the Pacific, but to us at that 
moment it seemed the very perfection of tropic 
loveliness. 
We reached Apia as darkness fell; and then, 
bidding goodbye to the doctor and Gafalua and 
the little maid, I hurried aboard our schooner, 
and found that she was only awaiting my return 
to sail at daylight. 
And as the red sun shot up from the sea, 
the sharp bows of our little vessel cleft the 
