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

AMBRYM 2 I 5

looked at me in deadly fright, then, with a terrified
cry, she jumped over the fence, and burst into
hysterical laughter, while a dozen invisible women
shrieked; then they all ran away, and as I went on,
I could hear that the flight had ceased and the
shrieks changed to hearty laughter. They had taken
me for a kidnapper, or feared some other harm, as
was natural enough with their experience of certain
kinds of White men.

Walking along, I heard the explosions of the
volcano like a far-away cannonade. The dull
shocks gave my walk a peculiar solemnity, but
the bush prevented any outlook, and only from the
coast I occasionally saw the volcanic clouds mount-
ing into the sky.

From the old mission—house the view on a clear
day is splendid. On the slope stand a few large
trees, whose cleft leaves frame the indescribably
blue sea, which breaks in snowy lines in the lava-
boulders below. Far off, I can see Malekula, with
its forest-covered mountains, and summer clouds
hanging above it. It is a dreamlike summer day,
so beautiful, bright and mild as to be hardly real.
One feels a certain regret at being unable to absorb
all the beauty, at having to stand apart as an
outsider, a patch on the brightness rather than a
part of it.

At night the view is different, but just as en-
chanting. A fine dust from the volcano floats in the
air and the pale moonlight plays softly on the smooth
surface of the bay, filling the atmosphere with silver,