Whenever Ethel can be spared from her home-duties she comes with me on my exploring expeditions, and sometimes carries a kettle, a small bottle of milk, and a little packet of tea and sugar; then, while I am sketching, she lights a fire and ministers to my comfort. The only drawback to the delightful shady nooks, which we prefer, is the multitude of mosquitoes which infest them. I am sure they scent out a fresh prey in me. Never shall I forget my first day here, when I settled down to make a careful study of a magnificent old banyan (identical, I think, with the _Ficus religiosa_ of India). The mosquitoes assembled in myriads. Vainly did Ethel and a wild-looking brown goat-herd sit, one on each side of me, holding branches, with which to beat them off; and vainly did I slay six or eight at a time, so often as I could pause to slap one hand on the other. Thicker and thicker they swarmed (for there was not a breath of air stirring in the thicket where we sat); so at last we had to give it up and fly to cool our fevered hands and faces in the sea; then we lay under the orange-trees in the old garden, and ate ripe golden fruit to our hearts’ content. Next time I go to sketch in any such sheltered spot, I shall hang up my mosquito-net to a tree, so as to lessen this maddening distraction—though, of course, it will be rather dazzling to draw looking through a fine white net. How funny some of our incidents of common life would seem to you! Last night I was awakened by the grunting of pigs all round my window, and guessed that they had broken through their fence and got into the garden. So I jumped up and gave them chase wildly, and succeeded in driving them all out. Mr Leefe owns a second small island, separated from this by a narrow channel; there he keeps another flock of goats, and yesterday went over to count them. He took us with him, much to Ethel’s delight, as the Fijian shepherd has a pretty baby, which is her namesake and great pet. We saw a curious natural rock-bridge on the coast, concerning which, tradition says, a shark jumped through a cave and left this rock standing.