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

LOLOWAY~MALO—THE BANKS ISLANDS 253

tunity to cross. I accepted all the more gladly, as
this part of Malo was still quite unknown to me.
The population I found here is probably identical
with that which formerly inhabited the south shore
of Santo. This was interesting to me because of
certain scientific details, though on the whole the
life was much the same as elsewhere in Melanesia,
with the Suque, etc. I collected a number of charms
and amulets, which the people sold willingly, as they
no longer believed in their power. Formerly, they
were supposed to be useful for poisoning, as love-
charms, or for help in collecting many tusked pigs.

I also visited the neighbouring islands, and heard
the gruesome story of how the last village on Aoré
disappeared. The Aoré people were for ever at war
with those of South Santo, across the Segond Channel.
The men of Aoré were about sixty strong, and one
day they attacked a Santo village. Everyone fled
except one man, who was helpless from disease. He
was killed and eaten up, and in consequence of this
meal thirty out of the sixty men from Aoré died.
The others dispersed among the villages of Malo.
'ln Aoré, I had the rare sensation of witnessing an
earthquake below the surface. I was exploring a
deep cave in the coral banks when I heard the well-
known rumbling, felt the shock, and heard some great
stalactites fall from the ceiling. This accumulation
of effects seemed then to me a little theatrical and
exaggerated.

The next steamer took me to the Banks Islands,
and I went ashore at Port Patterson on Venua Lava.