Occasionally we caught a glimpse of these sable damsels, but only one female came near us--a meagre old woman who darted past with an axe in her hand, and sprang up into one of the huts like a harlequin, showing at the same time more of her long shrivelled shanks than was strictly decorous.

Besides the usual petticoat reaching to the knee, made of a grass or some leaf--perhaps of the pandanus--cut into long shreds, this dame wore a somewhat similar article round the neck, hanging over the breast and shoulders, leaving the arms free.

An axe was offered to one of the men, who had previously sat for his portrait, to induce him to bring the woman to Mr.Huxley, who was anxious to get a sketch of a female, but in spite of the strong inducement we did not succeed, and any further notice taken of the woman seemed to give offence.

While wandering about the place we came upon a path leading into the adjacent brush, but blocked up by some coconut leaves recently thrown across.

This led past an enclosure of about three quarters of an acre, neatly and strongly fenced in, probably used as a pen for keeping pigs in, judging from the absence of anything like cultivation, and the trodden-down appearance, apparently made by these animals, a jaw-bone of one of which was picked up close by.
NATIVES GET TIRED OF US.
At length the natives appeared anxious to get rid of us, after obtaining about seventeen axes and a few knives, in return for 368 pounds of yams, which cost us little more than a halfpenny per pound.