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

266 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

down on a wild foam-flecked sea, over which the
storm was raging as it did during the previous
cyclones. I realized that I should have to stay
here for some time, and ate my last provisions some-
what pensively. I only hoped that the launch had
found an anchorage, else she must inevitably have
been wrecked, and I should be left at the mercy of
the natives for an indefinite time. The hut in which
Icamped did not keep off the rain, and I was wet
and uncomfortable; thus I spent the first of a series
of miserable nights. I was anxious to know the fate
of the launch, and this in itself was enough to worry
me ; then I was without reading or writing materials,
and my days were spent near a smoky fire, watching
the weather, trying to find a dry spot, sleeping and
whistling. Sometimes a few natives came to keep
me company; and once I got hold of a man who
spoke a little biche la mar, and was willing to tell
me about some old-time customs. However, like
most natives, he soon wearied of thinking, so that
our conversations did not last long.

The natives kept me supplied with food in
the most hospitable manner: yam, taro, cabbage,
delicately prepared, were at my disposal; but, un-
accustomed as I was to this purely vegetable diet,
I soon felt such a craving for meat that I began to
dream about tinned-meat, surely not a normal state
of things. To add to my annoyance, rumours got
afloat to the effect that the launch was wrecked ; and

if this was true, my situation was bad indeed.
On the fifth day I decided to try and find the