humility, shouting the _tama_ (obeisance) from time to time. In olden days the building of such a canoe as this would have entailed a whole series of cannibal feasts. First, as rejoicing when the keel was laid down; then feasts for the carpenters as each portion was completed; then living rollers to facilitate launching the canoe—and these, of course, were cooked and eaten; next, the deck of the canoe must be washed with blood; and finally, a great feast must be provided on the occasion of first taking down the mast. Sometimes as many as fifteen men were sacrificed for such a banquet. If a new canoe was brought to Bau which had not received its due baptism of blood, the chiefs would attack a neighbouring town to secure victims, that its reproach might be taken away! No fear of any such horrors now. The building of the great canoe progresses slowly, for workmen are now scarce; but the old king sits for hours watching it with pleasure, and then, taking advantage of the low tide, he tucks up his drapery of _tappa_, and wades almost knee-deep through the shallow water to the muddy shore of the main island, where he goes to work with his own hands in his yam-gardens,—chiefly to set a good example of honest labour to his people. Last Sunday Mr Langham took me to see another village, where he was to hold service. The morning was lovely—a dead calm and oppressive stillness. We had scarcely got home when the sky darkened, and it began to pour. Rain was much wanted for the yam crop, but this was decidedly in excess. We were to have started for Levuka at daybreak the following morning, but deemed it prudent to defer, as it was evident foul weather was approaching. The students went to the main isle to cut mangroves with which to bind the thatch, and make such preparations as they could. Darker and darker grew the sky, heavy grey clouds closed all round the horizon, hiding even the nearest isles. Then down came the rain—such a downpour as I have rarely seen, even in the tropics. Soon the wind rose in fitful gusts, howling and moaning. It increased steadily till it was actually a small hurricane.[27] Not such an awful one as they sometimes have even here, and not nearly so bad as a West Indian one, but by far the worst I have ever seen. It blew furiously all night, and one marvelled how any trees stood it—the palms were tossed about like mad things. Of course every blossom in the garden was gone. Even inside the coral-reef the sea was thundering in great crested waves. In the middle of the night the roof of my room began to leak so freely, that we thought the whole thatch would blow off, so Mr Langham rang a great bell, and all the young men, students at the mission, came up and swarmed over the roof and bound it with planks and long mangrove wands.