This morning after Prayers and school I walked down to the river side at Rarava, whither almost the entire population had preceded me, and where I lit upon a busy scene. It was a most resplendent day, but the overhanging branches of the wide spreading foliage lent a charm and grateful shade to the occasion. The men were engaged in digging the ‘taro’ roots, from their irrigated beds, and the women busy washing and preparing them for culinary purposes. The ladies here, present no exception to a proverbial excess in the use of the ‘unruly member’ as the especially noticeable characteristic of the gentler sex in more favoured parts of the world, and a Babel-like clatter of tongues formed a striking accompaniment to the quietness and order of the work in hand. The taro beds of course are mud, pure and simple, and the taro when dug is a very dirty vegetable, it is covered over besides with long tenacious feelers for roots, and these are picked off with the fingers in the most skilled and practised manner much after the fashion of plucking and preparing a bird for table. When the cleaning and plucking process is perfected, the long stalks are collected to a head and tied up in convenient bundles with one of their own parts in the most ingenious and knowing manner. Two bundles are then arranged on one long pole, and carried by one bearer on the shoulder, one bundle before and another behind their backs. The weight is considerable, but here the burden is borne by the men, the women carry the broad leaves and other concomitants of native cookery. Beyond the cackle there was very much merriment which all seemed in accord with the dancing sparkling waters of the clear flowing river. The prospect around was most beautiful and although not extensive the landscape was most bewitching, and the eye was never tired with seeing. These natives have great natural taste, which is displayed to a far greater degree in the arrangement and beautifying of their yam and taro gardens here, than in any other island I have seen.