ear remembrance of the departed. Among a flourishing
population it would naturally be impossible to obtain such objects,
but here, where the people are rapidly decreasing in number, a statue
often enough loses its descendants, whereupon others have no objection
to sell it.

The taste for plastic art shows in other things as well. I found
several grotesque dancing-masks and sticks, made for some special
dance. The feeling for caricature expressed in these articles is
extraordinary and amusing even, from a European point of view. Here,
too, the Semitic type appears, and the natives seem to delight in the
hooked noses, thick lips and small chins. I gathered a rich harvest of
these curios near the little island of Hambi; unfortunately Mr. Paton
came to take me home before I had time to pack the objects carefully,
and I had to leave them in charge of natives until the arrival of the
steamer; when I found them again, after six months, they had suffered
a good deal.

Towards evening, while rounding the south-east corner of Malekula,
our motor broke down, and we had neither oars nor sail. Fortunately
the tide was in our favour, and we improvised a sail from a blanket, so
that we drifted slowly along and reached the anchorage late at night.

Mr. Paton then took me to Malo, where a Frenchman, Mr. I., was
expecting me. On the east coast there was but little to be done,
as the natives had nearly all disappeared; but I was able to pick
up some skulls near a number of abandoned villages. I found very
considerable architectural remains,--walls, mounds and altars, all
of masonry; buildings of this importance are to be found nowhere else
except in Aore and the Banks Islands, and it seems probable that the
populations of these three districts are related.

I had an interesting experience here. Mr. I. and his neighbour did
not enjoy the best of reputations as regarded their treatment of
natives. One day Mr. I. took me over to N.'s place. N. was just
returning from a recruiting trip to Malekula. We saw him come
ashore, staggering and moaning; on being questioned, he told us
that he had been attacked by the natives, and his crew eaten up. He
was in a frightful state, completely broken, weeping like a child,
and cursing the savages, to whom, he said, he had never done any
wrong. His grief was so real that I began to pity the man, and
thought he had probably been paying the penalty for the misdeeds
of another recruiter. Mr. I. was just a