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

[94 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

This time we arrived safely at Port Vila, where
the British and French native police forces came
aboard, bound for Santo, to quell a disturbance at
Hog Harbour; and so the hapless boat was over-
loaded again, this time with passengers.

Next day we arrived at Epi, and I landed at
Ringdove Bay. The station of the Messrs. F. and H.
is one of the oldest in the islands. Besides running
a plantation, they trade with the natives, and their
small cutters go to all the neighbouring islands for
coprah and other produce. There is always plenty
of life and movement at the station, as there are,
usually a few of the vessels lying at anchor, and
natives coming in from all sides in their whale—boats
to buy or sell something. From Malekula one can
often see them tacking about all day, or, if there is
a calm, drifting slowly along, as they are too lazy to
row. When they have found the passage through
the reef, they pull down the sails with much noise and
laughter, and come to anchor; then the whole crowd
wades through the surf to the shore, with the loads of
coprah, and waits patiently for business to begin.

On these stations, where almost everyone is
squeezed into decent European clothes, it is a
charming sight to see the naked bodies of the
genuine savages, all the more so as only young
and able-bodied men take part in these cruises,
under the leadership of one older and more ex—
perienced companion. Their beauty is doubly
striking beside the poor station hands, wrapped
in filthy calico.