Though our household party is nominally a large one, two or three are generally absent. Captain Knollys and Mr Gordon have just returned from an expedition to the camp up in the mountains, in the heart of the disaffected district, among the wild big-heads, the Kai Tholos, or people of the mountains. Captain Olive was sent up there some time ago with a strong force of native police (very fine men, and he glories in them, and lives like them and with them). He made a regular fortified camp, on a plain in the heart of the mountains, and at first the mountaineers thought he certainly meant war; but by degrees they are getting tamer, and the one tribe which is most seriously antagonistic has been vainly trying to persuade others to back it up, and they have refused; so now we hope all fear of fighting is over. But it was necessary to send up some more armed men as a reinforcement, and a great mass of stuff for barter; so these two went in charge of it, and have brought us back very interesting sketches of places and people. Mr Gordon is a real artist, and his sketches are very clever. Up in the mountains the people are still heathen, and the dress is yet primitive. For full dress, women wear a fringe of grass four inches long. The men of the mountains when fully dressed wear a strip of _tappa_ tied in a very large bow, and trailing train. Their heads are gigantic, about eighteen inches in diameter, and some much larger; the stiff hair being very long and bent back in large bunches, makes it grow inward among the roots: of course it is rarely, if ever, dressed, and forms magnificent cover! As the inmates are apt to tickle, every big-head wears a long pin stuck through the hair to scratch with, and when the irritation becomes unbearable, he kindles a fire of banana-leaves, and, placing his wooden neck-pillow close to it, gets his head thoroughly smoked. These wooden neck-pillows occupy a prominent position in the annals of the Fijian police-courts. They are handy weapons; and a bolstering match in which they figure is apt to be a serious one. They are a great check on aggravating curtain-lectures, and are used everywhere all over the isles. Most pillows are a stick about one inch in diameter, resting on two legs. These Kai Tholos (Highlanders) have many legends and fairy tales which, unfortunately, no one who has really mastered the language can find time to collect. One is, that the great _dakua_ or _kaurie_ pine-forests are haunted by tiny men called _Vélé_, with high conical heads. They carry small hand-clubs, which they throw at all trespassers, who go mad in consequence; but (mark the coincidence with German fairy tales) if you have the wit to carry in your hand a fern-leaf, they are powerless, and fall at your feet, crying, “Spare me.” Once they all fell in love with a pretty human girl who strayed into the forest. They were so charmed with her that they kept her there a year before she managed to escape.