y precious boat floating idly in the
lagoon. Oddly enough, I had in the meantime always taken the greatest
care of the boat, keeping her bottom clean and generally furbishing her
up--having, however, no particular object in view in doing this, except
perhaps that it gave me something to do. The poor little "home-made"
boat threw the blacks into a perfect frenzy of astonishment, and they
concluded that I must have come from a very distant part of the world in
so enormous a "catamaran." As a matter of fact, from that moment they
looked upon me as most certainly a kind of Supreme Spirit from another
world; they may have had doubts before. Next I showed them the wreck,
which was now only a bare skeleton of rotting woodwork, but still plainly
discernible among the coral rocks. I tried to explain to them that it
was in the larger boat that I had come, but they failed to understand me.

On returning to the hut I put on my clothes for their benefit, whereupon
their amazement was so great that I seriously contemplated discontinuing
my list of wonders, lest they should become absolutely afraid to remain
with me. The clothes they considered part of myself--in fact, a kind of
secondary skin! They were terribly frightened and distressed, and not
one of the four dared approach me.

The blacks did not build themselves any place of shelter, but merely
slept in the open air at night, under the lee of my hut, with a large
fire always burning at their feet. I offered them both blankets and
sails by way of covering, but they refused them, preferring to lie
huddled close together for warmth. In the morning the woman would
prepare breakfast for them, consisting of fish (mainly mullet), birds'
and turtles' eggs, and sea-fowl; to which would perhaps be added some
little luxury from my own stock. They only had two meals a day--one in
the morning and the other in the afternoon. Their favourite food was
turtle, of which they could eat enormous quantities, especially the fat.
Bruno was a long time before he took kindly to the new arrivals, probably
because they manifested such extraordinary emotion whenever he lifted up
his voice and barked.

I think the only thing that roused the father of the family from his
sullen moods was my extraordinary acrobatic performances, which also
threw the two little nigger boys into hysterics of delight. Father,
mother, and children tried to imitate my somersaults, "wheels," and
contortions, but came