Such are the risks of plantation life. The fine silky hair is not the sole advantage of introducing the Angora goat. Its flesh is said to be more tender than mutton, with a slight flavour of venison; and, moreover, such a flock will thrive where sheep could not find a living.[42] It was nearly eight o’clock before we got back from the milking, and from feeding the poultry and the pigs, and you may believe we did enjoy our good hot tea. But Mrs Leefe was so ill that she had to go to bed again. Generally she is very strong, and thinks nothing of walking ten or twelve miles. I thought it was now time to establish my regular sleeping-quarters. My host most generously offered to give up his own little grass hut for me; but on looking round, I discovered a tiny lumber-room partitioned off the dining-room, which is a house apart, and so close to the sea that I could almost step from the window into the water. I petitioned for the use of this small room, and with much help from Ethel and an acute Solomon Island girl, I cleared out many sacks of cuttle-fish bones, maize, and “produce” of all sorts, swept it out, laid down mats, fixed up a tiny bedstead, drove in nails on which to hang up clothes, and hung one of my waterproof sheets as a door, and so made quite a cosy wee den, in which I am now comfortably established. A “bedstead” would be quite an unnecessary adjunct in a Fijian house, with its flooring of soft grass and many mats; but here we have a wooden floor which would be too hard for comfort: besides, where maize has been stored, rats are wont to congregate. My little room has only one drawback, namely, that just at the window there remains one immovable trace of its former use—that is, the corn grinder, in which the men’s daily rations are ground, with such intolerable noise as invariably to drive me up the hill to escape from it. What must it be for the wretched native who has to do it, all the time receiving general abuse for the hideous row which he cannot avoid making! I think the plantation hands here are exclusively foreign labour, all the Fijians having been turned off when Mr Leefe purchased the whole island. He also has property on the mainland of Viti Levu, where his nephew Harry lives as superintendent, and keeps a store for the supply of cloth, lamps, sardines, tools, and other necessaries of life—a great convenience in this remote place. Most of his customers are natives.