’Sunday.—­Very calm, but a light breeze took us into Nukapu.  A canoe came off, I made them understand that it was our day of rest, and that I would visit them atainu (to-morrow), a curious word.  I gave a few presents, and we slowly sailed on.

’Monday, 6 A.M.—­Off Piteni, canoe off, went ashore, low tide, got into a canoe, and so reached the beach, people well behaved, much talk of taking lads, quite well understood.  The speech is (you remember) very Maori indeed.  There were some nice lads, but no one came away.  Four canoes from Taumaho were here, and two Piteni men came back from Taumaho while I was on shore.

’At Nukapu at 2.30 P.M.  High water, went in easily over the reef by a short cut, not by our old winding narrow passage.  I was greatly pleased by the people asking me on board, “Where is Bisambe?” “Here I am.”  “No, no, the Bisambe tuai (of old).  Your mutua (father).  Is he below?  Why doesn’t he come up with some hatchets?”

’So you see they remember you.  A tall middle-aged man, Moto, said that he was with us in the boat in 1859, and he and I remembered the one-eyed man who piloted us.

’I went here also into the houses.  Here is a quaint place; many things, not altogether idols, but uncanny, and feared by the people.  Women danced in my honour, people gave small presents, &c., but no volunteers.  I could talk with them with sufficient ease; and took my time, lying at my ease on a good mat with cane pillow, Anaiteum fashion.  I told them that they had seen on board many little fellows from many islands; that they need not fear to let their children go; that I could not spend time and property in coming year by year and giving presents when they were unwilling to listen to what I said, but they only made unreal promises, put boys in the boat merely to take them out again, and so we went away atrakoi.’

There is a little weariness of spirits—­not of spirit—­in the contemporaneous words to the home party:—­

’I don’t know what to write about this voyage.  You have heard all about tropical vegetation, Santa Cruz canoes, houses, customs, &c.  If indeed I could draw these fellows, among whom I was lying on a mat on Monday; if you could see the fuzzy heads, stained white and red, the great shell ornaments on the arms, the round plate of shell as big as a small dinner plate hanging over the chest, the large holes in the lobes of the ears rilled with perhaps fifteen or twenty rings of tortoise-shell hung on to one another; the woven scarves and girdles stained yellow with turmeric and stamped with a black pattern:  then it would make a curious sight for you; and your worthy brother, much at his ease, lying flat on his back on two or three mats, talking to the people about his great wish to take away some of the jolly little fellows to whom he was giving fish-hooks, would no doubt be very “interesting.”  But really all this has become so commonplace, that I can’t write about it with any freshness.  The volcano in this group, Tenakulu, is now active, and was a fine sight at night, though the eruption is not continuous as it was in 1859.