“_Friday._—Walked over to Korolevu, where I was received in a fashion which I have never seen elsewhere. The people were arranged in rows on each side of the _rara_. As I came into it, all the folks inclined their heads to the left shoulder, and, as I passed them, sank down into a slanting position to the left, like a row of nine-pins.... Most picturesque was the offering to me of the _magiti_ (feast), by moonlight, as I sat on the marble steps of the old _buré_ (devil temple), destroyed long ago. Most striking too was the scene in the village afterwards,—each household grouped in front of its own door, and later the sound of prayers from the various houses. Every one of the people here was, last year, a prisoner. Later I strolled up and down by myself alone, but in perfect security.... From one house I heard the voices of a number of women repeating the Lord’s Prayer. What a change from last year, when there was nothing here but heaps of ashes!” CHAPTER XXI. A PLANTER’S HOUSE—ANGORA GOATS—A LOVELY SHORE—SERICULTURE—THE MOSQUITO PLAGUE. NANANU, A SMALL ISLE OFF VITI LEVU, _Sept. 30, 1876_. DEAR NELL,—At last I have reached the Robinson Crusoe home, about which we used to conjure up such visions of romance, whenever a letter from the far-away Fiji Isles reached the old vicarage in Northumberland. I came here last Tuesday with Baron von Hügel. Captain Knollys lent us his beautiful boat and a crew of native police: we had the great luck of a fair wind, and made the run in eight hours—which is exceptionally good time. You who have never been much in the way of travelling in small ships and boats can scarcely realise how tantalising are the constant delays to which we are liable from wind and weather. You would think that a home within eight hours’ run of the capital cannot be very isolated. Yet such are the difficulties of getting about and of leaving home, that since the day—now ten years ago—when Mr Leefe brought his bride here—a bright pretty girl of eighteen, with a tiny baby daughter—her sole expeditions have been one three months’ trip to Australia, when she was very ill, and one visit of six weeks to Levuka to stay with a friend, whose two children died while she was there,—so that was not a cheerful visit. And though a boat occasionally touches here, no ladies have ever done so except once, when Mrs Havelock called for three hours; and once also, some years ago, when a brother-planter fled here with his wife and family for refuge from the cannibals, and then the two families had to stow themselves as best they could in the one house of two rooms.