In thinking of the South Sea Islands, and of tropical islands in general, if you have never seen them, one may not realise that the general appearance of them must necessarily be green, since they are entirely covered with vegetation. One imagines a few palm-trees sticking up out of the sea, instead of a range of mountains covered with trees. As you first catch sight of Roratonga, you realise what New Zealand must have been like when it was covered with bush, only, of course, the climate of Roratonga is far milder and far warmer. The moment the steamer reaches Roratonga a great quantity of natives set out in boats from the shore and swarm on board. They are not black; they are not copper-coloured; they are a sort of dull almond colour, with very black hair and very dark brown eyes. They wear large straw hats; some of them have flowers in their hair and behind their ears. [Illustration: NATIVES SWARMING ON BOARD] As soon as you reach the shore the aspect of the island, which you might think disappointing at a distance, changes entirely. You are caught in a sort of warm embrace of aromatic deliciousness. Hibiscus bushes, with great scarlet blossoms, surround you on every side; cocoa palms, and all vegetation which you expect to see in a tropical island, are there before your eyes. But you will say, “If it is just the same as any other tropical island, what is the use of describing it--if it is merely what one sees in the East? You have already spoken of Ceylon.” Well, Roratonga and the islands of the South Seas are not in the least like Ceylon, and they are not in the least like anything in the Near or Far East. They have a peculiar charm which is completely individual, and totally unlike anything else. The sights and the people of these Southern places are utterly unlike the sights and people you see in the East--in Ceylon, for instance. There is nothing here of that hard, metallic element which you get in the East; nothing of that inscrutable mystery, that shadow of cruelty, which you feel in the Orient. The people are like the climate--soft and gentle; and they talk in musical tones, like the twittering of birds; and their speech is careless as the laughing talk of children. They reminded me of that race of people whom H. G. Wells describes in his book “The Time Machine,” that same people whom he imagines as living aboveground in the far, far distant future, when the industrial population of the world had grown into a sort of human flesh-eating lemur, which could only live underground and could only see in the dark. Mr. Wells represents the other and the civilized half of the population as having progressed or degenerated, whichever you like, into a race of childlike, amiable, and playful little people, who live on fruit in tumble-down houses, and who are as careless and irresponsible as butterflies. The people of Roratonga reminded me of this fancy of Mr. Wells’s.