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

CHAPTER XVI

THE SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

AFTER my return to Port Vila, where I again had
the honour of being Mr. King’s guest, and having
practically finished my task in the New Hebrides,
I decided not to leave this part of the world without
visiting the Santa Cruz Islands, a group of small
islands north of the New Hebrides and east of the
Solomon Islands. This archipelago has not had
much contact with civilization, and is little known.
I had a good opportunity to go there, as the steam
yacht Soulkern Cross of the Anglican MISSION in
Melanesia was expected to stop at Vila on her way
to the Solomons. She touched at the Santa Cruz
island of Nitendi going and returning, and could
therefore drop me and take me up again after about
six weeks. While waiting for her arrival, I investi—
gated some caves on Leleppa, near Port Havannah,
which the natives reported to be inhabited by dwarfish
men ; but the results were insignificant.

Passage having been granted me by the skipper
of the Sow/tern Cross, I once more sailed the well-
known route northward through the New Hebrides
and Banks Islands; but from Ureparapara onward
I was in strange waters. The SouZ/zern Cross was a

steamer of about five hundred tons, built especially
977