“Such is the African’s idle day, and thus every summer is spent. As the wintry rains draw nigh, the necessity of daily bread suggests itself. The peasants then leave their huts about six or seven a.m., often without provision which now becomes scarce, and labour till noon or two p.m., when they return home, and find food prepared by the wife or the slave girl. During the afternoon they return to work, and sometimes, when the rains are near, they are aided by the women. Towards sunset all wend homeward in a body, laden with their implements of cultivation, and singing a kind of ‘dulce domum’ in a simple and pleasing recitative.” Let us conclude this brief sketch of the perils and inconveniences that menace the explorer of savage shores by presenting the reader with a picture of the approach of one of the ships bearing some of the earliest English visitants to the cannibal shores of the Southern Seas: “Notwithstanding,” says Mr. Ellis, “all our endeavours to induce the natives to approach the ship, they continued for a long time at some distance viewing us with apparent surprise and suspicion. At length one of the canoes, containing two men and a boy, ventured alongside. Perceiving a lobster lying among a number of spears at the bottom of the canoe, I intimated by signs my wish to have it, and the chief readily handed it up. I gave him in return two or three middle-size fish-hooks, which, after examining rather curiously, he gave to the boy, who having no pocket to put them in, or any article of dress to which they might be attached, instantly deposited them in his mouth, and continued to hold with both hands the rope hanging from the ship. “The principal person in the canoe appeared willing to come on board. I pointed to the rope he was grasping and put out my hand to assist him up the ship’s side. He involuntarily laid hold of it, but could scarcely have felt my grasp when he instantly drew back his hand and raising it to his nostrils smelt at it most significantly as if to ascertain with what kind of being he had come in contact. After a few moments’ pause he climbed over the ship’s side, and as soon as he had reached the deck our captain led him to a chair on the quarter-deck, and pointing to the seat signified his wish that he should be seated. The chief, however, having viewed it for some time, pushed it aside and sat down on the deck. Our captain had been desirous to have the chief aboard that he might ascertain from him whether the island produced sandal-wood, as he was bound to the Marquesas in search of that article. A piece was therefore procured and shown him, with the qualities of which he appeared familiar, for after smelling it and calling it by some name he pointed to the shore.