[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

264 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

home. But we went on to a place where water
boiled in black pools, sometimes quietly, then with
a sudden high jump; some of the water was black,
some yellowish, and everything around was covered
with sulphur as if with hoar—frost.

We followed the course of a creek whose water
was so hot as to scald our feet, and the heat became
most oppressive. We were glad to reach the crater,
though it was a gloomy and colourless desert, in
the midst of which a large grey pool boiled and
bubbled. In front was a deep crevice in the crater
wall, and a cloud of steam hid whatever was in it;
yet we felt as though something frightful must be
going on there. Above this gloomy scene stretched
a sky of serenest blue, and we had a glimpse of the
coast, with its little islands bathing in the sapphire sea.

Next day we left for Gaua. Unhappily the
captain met friends, and celebrated with them to such
an extent that he was no longer to be relied on,
which was all the more unpleasant as the weather
was of the dirtiest, and the barometer presaged
another cyclone. After twopdays it cleared up a
little ; I went ashore at the west point of Gaua, where
the launch was to pick me up again two days later,
as I meant to visit the interior while the others went
to buy coprah. Even now the wind and the swell
from the north-west were increasing suspiciously, and
after I had spent a rainy night in a village off the
shore, I saw the launch race eastward along the coast,
evidently trying to make a safe anchorage, with the
storm blowing violent squalls and the sea very high.