They seem to me to be of quite a different race." "So they are," answered Bill.

"These fellows come from the Tongan Islands, which lie a long way to the eastward.

They come here to build their big war-canoes; and as these take two, and sometimes four years, to build, there's always some o' the brown-skins among the black sarpents o' these islands." "By the way, Bill," said I, "your mentioning serpents, reminds me that I have not seen a reptile of any kind since I came to this part of the world." "No more there are any," said Bill, "if ye except the niggers themselves, there's none on the islands, but a lizard or two and some sich harmless things.

But I never seed any myself.

If there's none on the land, however, there's more than enough in the water, and that minds me of a wonderful brute they have here.