gan to cluster on the shore, and when once
or twice my uncle said that we would go in nearer and see, the same
custom was invariably observed: the people came shouting and dancing
about the beach holding out birds and bunches of feathers and shells,
making signs for us to land.

There was no need for Ebo to grow excited and cry, "No--no! man-kill!
man-kill!" for my uncle laughed and shook his head.

"They must try another way of baiting their traps, Nat," he would cry
laughing. "My head is too sore with blows and memories to be caught
again."

It was always the same. No sooner did the treacherous savages find that
we would not land than they rushed to their canoes, and began to pursue
us howling and yelling; but the swift-sailed boat was always ready to
leave them far behind, and we were only too glad to find that the
pleasant brisk breezes stood our friends.

"I would not loiter here, Nat," he said, "amidst such a treacherous,
bloodthirsty set, but the great island is so tempting that I long for a
ramble amongst its forests. I know that there are plenty of wonderful
specimens to be obtained here. New kinds of paradise birds,
butterflies, and beetles, and other attractions that it would be a sin
not to obtain."

"Perhaps we shall find a place by and bye where there are no
inhabitants, uncle," I said.

"That is what I have been hoping for days," he replied; and not long
after we sailed round a headland into a beautiful bay with the whitest
of sand, trees clustering amidst the lovely yellow stone cliffs, and a
bright stream of water flowing through a gorge and tumbling over two or
three little barriers of rocks before losing itself in the calm waters
of the bay.

Some six or seven miles back was a high ridge of mountains, which seemed
to touch the sea to east and west, cutting off as it were a narrow strip
from the mainland, and this strip, some fifteen miles long and six wide
at its greatest, was fertile in the extreme.

"Why, Nat," cried my uncle, "this should be as grand a place as our
island. If it is free of savages it is the beau ideal of a naturalist's
station. Look! what's that?"

"A deer come out of the wood to drink in the stream," I said.

"Poor deer," laughed my uncle, "I'm afraid it will have to come into our
larder, for a bit of venison is the very thing we want."

As he spoke he cautiously took up a rifle, rested it upon the edge of
the boat, waited a few moments, and then fired at fully