SANTA CRUZ. 237 
Fenua Loa is separated only at high water from its northern neighbor 
Nifilole. Huge reefs stretch out west in a great arm from Fenua Loa, 
and inside the encircling reef lies Matema. When journeying from 
Ndeni by whaleboat to the Reef Islands the missionaries made for an 
opening in the reef opposite Matema and then sailed or rowed up in 
the quiet water under the lee of Fenua Loa. ‘The little island Pileni 
lies 3 miles away from Nifilole, and there is a deep-water passage 
between the two; Pileni, like Nifilole, Nukapu, and Nupani, is raised 
only a few feet above sea-level, but it differs from them in having no 
encircling coral reef. Nukapu is 15 miles west of Pileni and Nupani 
20 miles still farther west. All the islands are covered with dense 
forest. 
The population of the Reefs is probably now not much more than 
500 all told, and two distinct types of language are spoken—Mela- 
nesian and Polynesian—each type being split up again into what 
almost amounts to local dialects. On Fenua Loa and Nifilole and the 
islands to the eastward the language is Melanesian and is akin to that 
spoken on Ndeni; on Matema, Pileni, Nukapu, and Nupani the 
language is a much-decayed form of a Polynesian language. It 1s 
probable that these four Polynesian-speaking islands do not differ to 
any very great extent in language, but that the differences in the Mela- 
nesian-speaking islands of the group are far more noticeable. It is 
worthy of note that of the Melanesian islands Fenua Loa (Long Island) 
has a distinctly Polynesian name, and Nifilole is almost certainly of 
the same language stock. 
On the Reef Islands there is but little food and no good fresh water. 
The people live largely on fish, coconuts, and breadfruit. Frequent 
journeys are made to Ndeni in the sailing canoes to get food, which is 
bartered for fish, dried breadfruit, and woven mats. The breadfruit 
is dried and made up in little plaited packets of cane or is kept in a 
silo in the ground and eaten when required. ‘The smell of the bread- 
fruit thus preserved is too much for European nostrils. Fish abound 
in the shallow waters of the lagoons and are shot with arrows or caught 
with nets or hooks. ‘The shells found in these waters are particularly 
numerous and beautiful. 
The Santa Cruz group claims particular notice for three reasons: 
its languages, its looms, its canoes. ‘There has never been any attempt 
made to learn the Polynesian language spoken in the Reefs. Bishop 
G. A. Selwyn and Bishop Patteson were both Maori scholars and were 
able to hold converse with the Nukapu people. Dr. Codrington has 
published a small grammar of the Nifilole language and one a little 
fuller of the Ndeni language. 
The eating of areca nut with pepper leaf and quicklime, which 1s 
characteristic of all the groups from the Solomons westward to India, 
proceeds no farther eastward than Santa Cruz and Tikopia. In the 
