As Teste Island is about twenty miles from the mainland, with a dead beat to it, I decided to seek for a position more accessible to New Guinea, and as I had not a teacher to spare for this little island, Mr. McFarlane decided to leave two of the Loyalty Island teachers here.  It is fertile, and appears healthy, is two and a half miles long, and half a mile broad.  A ridge of hills runs right through its centre from east-north-east to west-south-west.  The natives have some fine plantations on the north side, and on the south and east sides they have yam plantations to the very tops of the hills.  There are plantations and fruit-trees all round the island.

On Monday, I accompanied Mr. McFarlane when he went ashore to make arrangements to land his teachers and secure a house for them.  The people seemed pleased that some of our party would remain with them.  Mr. McFarlane at once chose a house on a point of land a good way from our landing-place, and at the end of the most distant village.  The owner was willing to give up the house until the teachers could build one for themselves, so it was at once taken and paid for.  We came along to our old friend’s place near the landing, when we were told that the house taken was a very bad one.  In the first place, the position was unhealthy; in the second, that was the point where their enemies from Basilaki (Moresby Island) always landed when they came to fight, and the people could not protect the teachers if so far off when their foes came.  All agreed in this, and a fine new house which had never been occupied was offered and taken, the same price being paid for it as for the other one.  This house is close to the landing-place, and in the midst of the people.  The owner of the first house offered to return the things, but we thought it would not be ruinous to let him keep them, their English value being about ten shillings.

We passed a tabooed place, or rather would have done so had we not been forced to take a circuitous path to the bush.  None of the natives spoke as we passed the place, nor till we were clear of it; they made signs also to us to be silent.  A woman had died there lately, and the friends were still mourning.  There had been no dancing in the settlement since the death, nor would there be any for some days to come.

I think women are more respected here than they are in some other heathen lands.  They seem to keep fast hold of their own possessions.  A man stole an ornament belonging to his wife, and sold it for hoop-iron on board the Bertha.  When he went ashore he was met on the beach by his spouse, who had in the meantime missed her trinket; she assailed him with tongue, stick, and stone, and demanded the hoop-iron.