Here we lingered long in the clear, beautiful moonlight, and here we returned with the first ray of dawn. A very old man, a Fijian version of Old Mortality, lives on the extreme summit of the little hill, and has charge of the village drums—I mean the wooden _lalis_, which used to be called _lali mbokolo_ (meaning the drum for the cannibal feast), but which now send forth their deep booming tones only to call the people to school or church. I should like to have stayed a good while at this place to sketch, and Mr Langham promises a longer halt on our return; but this time we had to hurry on and start at 6 A.M., having previously had prayers and breakfast. It did feel so odd to be living in a church! Happily it was beautifully clean. And oh, what a contrast to the house of a family of white planters where we called that day! The very picture of a poverty-stricken home. An English cottager would refuse to live in such a house, with its broken earthen floor. Such a contrast to the comfortable, thick, clean mats in the native houses we have been in. Yet white men in general seem to consider that they are bringing their families low indeed when they adopt a purely native house as home, and mats in lieu of chairs. Perhaps they are right, though for my own part I think I must confess to having rather a weakness for Fijian mat life. No doubt it tends to foster that indolence which is the bane of the islanders; and there is no denying that when once you have sunk down to rest on these soft, cool, tempting mats in the semi-darkness of a Fijian house, you do feel sorely disinclined to rise thence without very good cause. When this becomes a habit, it is a recognised evil known as mat-fever! Certainly the hard wooden chairs, or old, broken, worn-out sofas of these poor white homes, are in no danger of pampering habits of luxury. Yet at this place there were two bright lasses contriving to grow up somehow, and one of them reminded me of ‘Cometh up as a Flower,’ with her glorious halo of tangled yellow hair. This was the furthest point at which we found a white family. There were other neighbours, but after long battling with failing crops and ever-deepening poverty, they have all left the country in despair. A messenger has just arrived from Rewa bringing us letters. Mine is another proof of the utter irregularity of posts which depend on vague sailing-boats. Six weeks ago I accepted an invitation to go to the Leefes’ at Nananu, only a day’s sail from Levuka. Receiving no further message, I wrote, a fortnight later, to put off that visit for the present; and now I have a letter from Mr Leefe, who had come to Levuka at great inconvenience to fetch me; and though the distance _is_ “only a day’s sail,” it may involve a detention of many days.