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

232 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

extinct eastern crater had unexpectedly broken out
again, and that several lava streams were flowing
towards the coast.

Pentecoste, a long, narrow island running north
and south, resembles Maevo in shape. My host
here was a missionary who seemed to connect
Christianity with trousers and other details of civiliza-
tion. It was sad to see how many quaint customs,
harmless enough in themselves, were needlessly
destroyed. The wearing of clothes constitutes a
positive danger to health, as in this rainy climate the
natives are almost constantly soaked, do not trouble
to change their wet clothes, sleep all night in the
same things and invariably catch cold. Another
source of infection is their habit of exchanging
clothes, thus spreading all sorts of diseases. That
morals are not improved by the wearing of clothes is
a fact; for they are rather better in the heathen
communities than in the so-called Christian ones. It
is to be hoped that the time is not far off when
people will realize how very little these externals
have to do with Christianity and morality ; but there
is reason to fear that it will then be too late to save
the race.

We undertook an excursion into the interior, to
a district whose inhabitants had only recently been
pacified by Mr. F., my host; the tribes we visited
were very primitive, especially on the east coast,
where there is little contact with whites. The people
were still cannibals, and I had no difficulty in obtain-
ing some remnants of a cannibal meal.