whose shells, sharp as razors, cut the bare feet of the fugitive; while, on the contrary, they proved of assistance to me by preventing my thick boots from slipping off the treacherous roots.  I now gained ground as fast as I had previously lost it, and made certain of capturing my prisoner on arriving at the end of the mangroves, through which I could already catch glimpses of the sea.  Animated by the thoughts of bringing a captive into camp, from whom we should probably gain valuable information, I jumped from tree to tree in hot pursuit, and when the bay opened out clearly, I was only a short distance in the rear.

“Now I’ve got you,” I muttered, as the black fellow jumped on to the last stool of roots, and as I was eagerly following, holding my breath for a tussle; when, to my intense mortification, he plunged headlong into the sea, leaving me disconsolate and out of wind, to get back as best I could.  I waited until his head reappeared, which was not until he had put a good thirty yards between us, and, pointing my carbine, shouted to him to return or I would fire.  It was quite useless.  He went quietly out seaward, and at the last, when I turned unwillingly to retrace my steps, I saw his black head bobbing about on the calm surface.  When, after a series of involuntary feats on the mangrove rope, I again stood on ‘terra firma’, all the pigeons had left; and I was compelled to make my way back to camp, empty-handed, muddy, cut about the shins, and with my boots almost in tatters.  “So much,” thought I, “for trying to catch a black fellow single-handed.”

My companions had shot plenty of pigeons, after roasting which we started for the interior of the island, and without meeting with anything beyond the ordinary routine of bad bush and mountain travelling; certainly encountering nothing that would justify me in inflicting a prolix description upon the reader —­ we arrived late on the following evening at the rendezvous, found the ‘Daylight’ safely at anchor, and thus completed one portion of our search, without having obtained the faintest clue to an elucidation of the mystery of the ‘Eva’.

The pilot reported that, to the best of his belief, no blacks had succeeded in making their escape to the mainland; several canoes had attempted to cross, but they had been seen and intercepted, though none of their occupants had been captured.  One canoe he had taken possession of, and now showed us, which was, I think, the most primitive piece of naval architecture any of us had seen.  Canoe it could hardly be called, for it was only a sheet of bark curled up by the action of fire; the bow and stern formed by folding the extremities, and passing a tree-nail, or, rather, a large skewer, through the plaits.  When placed in the water, the portion amidships, which represented the gunwale, was not four inches above the surface, and so frail that no European could have got into it without a capsize, though the black fellows are so naturally endued with the laws of equilibrium that they can stand upright in these tiny craft, and even spear and haul on board large fish.