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

PENTECOSTE 2 3 9

against me on this occasion, and inside of twelve
hours I missed the steamer no less than three times,
which, in the New Hebrides, implies a delay of four
weeks.

50, in a heavy whale-boat, I rowed along the
coast toward Olal with some natives. A dull rain
drenched us, followed by glaring sunshine that
stewed us in heavy dampness. Like the ruins of a
giant wall, black lava blocks lay here and there
along the coast. The surf foamed white in the
crevasses, and the forest rose, sallow and greenish-
yellow, above the high bank. Here and there naked
natives squatted on the rocks, motionless, or looking
lazily for crabs ; among the huge boulders they looked
tiny, and their colouring scarcely distinguished them
from their surroundings; so that they seemed rather
like animals, or the shyest of cave—dwellers. Floating
slowly on the grey sea, in the sad broken light, I
thought I had never seen a more inhospitable coast.

Owing to the heavy swell, we had difficulty in
passing through the narrow channel inside the reef.
The great rollers pounded against the coral banks,
and poured back in a thousand white streamlets, like
a wonderful cascade, to be swallowed by the next
wave.

I found my friend, Mr. D., in a sad state with
fever, cold and loneliness; wrapped up in woollen
caps, blankets and heavy clothes, he looked more
like an Arctic explorer than a dweller near the
Equator. He spoke of leaving the islands, and,
indeed, did so some months later.