These native houses, although seemingly such poor structures, take some time and skill in building, and are very fair habitations when finished. They are rather low according to our ideas of comfort, but the natives grow accustomed to a crouching posture within doors, and they say the low roof does not catch the wind so easily, nor is the interior so cold. This is a consideration for people with no clothing, and I know myself from experience how cool it sometimes is here. Indeed, this very year I have never passed a night without being covered with a blanket, and even then I have not quite kept the cold away. A native, however, generally sleeps near a fire, and the interior of their houses are very snug. After the work was done this evening there was a great brew of kava, a drink made from the root of the kava plant, but here called “Malowo,” and highly intoxicating. There is much ceremony in connection with the drinking of this beverage, which as far as I have seen, if taken in fair moderation, produces strong inebriation, but is not an excitant, nor does it leave any ill effects when once the narcotic effects pass off. Any one who drinks is supposed to do so fasting, in order, I believe, that the draught may have the more effect. One or two cups are enough to produce intoxication, but of course men will make beasts of themselves in the drinking of kava, as well as of any other strong drink. Here it is prepared from the green root, and grated up with a rough, round coral stone, then squeezed into cups made of the half of a cocoanut shell, strained and mixed with water, after which it is ready for imbibation. To look at it is like soap suds, and to the taste it is like what I should suppose that compound resembled, with an additional admixture of rhubarb and magnesia, with a suspicion of strong senna or black draught. Indeed I think it is about the nastiest potion conceivable, and no wonder the drinker takes an unconscionably long time in swallowing the compound, and when finished would almost rather he had never drunk it. I was very glad to see most of our own people at school and prayers, but I believe some have reserved the ‘nightcap’ till nearer bed-time. When the drowsiness is over I believe a craving for food results, and then the appetite is appeased even if it be in the middle of the night. Certainly, however, a man is never quarrelsome over his cups, but a drowsiness and torpor creep over the most quarrelsome and irrepressive after the draught. The mode of preparation similar to that practised here obtains in all the Northern New Hebrides, as far as I know, but at Mota and the Banks’ Islands generally, and in Fiji it is prepared by a process of mastication, and is not nearly so intoxicating in its effects. At Santa Cruz and in the Solomon Islands the use of the kava is unknown, but instead they chew the betel nut.