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

162 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

formation, however, was forthcoming. One of my
servants told me that near a waterfall I could see
shining out of a deep ravine far inland, there lived
“small fellow men.”

It was an exceptionally stormy morning when we
started, so that Mr. F. advised me to postpone my
departure; but in the New Hebrides it is no use to
take notice of the weather, and that day it was so bad
that it could not get any worse, which was some con-
solation. Soon we were completely soaked, but we
kept on along the coast to some huts, where we were
to meet our guide. Presently he arrived, followed
by a crowd of children, as they seemed to me, who
joined our party. While climbing inland toward the
high mountains, I asked the guide if he knew any-
thing about the little people; he told me that one
of them was walking behind me. I looked more
closely at the man in question, and saw that whereas
I had taken him for a half—grown youth, he was
really a man of about forty, and all the others who
had come with him turned out to be full-grown but
small individuals. Of course I was delighted with this
discovery, and should have liked to begin measuring
and photographing at once, had not the torrents of
rain prevented.

I may mention here that I found traces later on
of this diminutive race in some other islands, but
rarely in such purity as here. Everywhere else they
had mingled with the taller population, while here they
had kept somewhat apart, and represented an element
by themselves, so that I was fortunate in having my