In Rubiana strange native methods of hair doing can be seen. Some men’s is cut in the most fantastic way and ornamented with bright plumes and flowers, and occasionally one possessing an extra fine crop of bushy hair will have it propped up with a piece of old hoop iron, and then if he can get hold of a comb, as he often can, he sticks it through the hair and the effect is weird. Some also bleach their hair and make it the colour of straw, though this is not met with as often as in Samoa, where I have seldom seen a native without bleached hair, or without hair that shows signs of having been bleached at one time. The same custom of shaving the head when in mourning is in vogue here as in New Guinea. Tattooing, however, is not nearly so popular, and very few natives in New Georgia show any signs of it. In place of it they paint their faces with lime, and look rather like clowns. Raised cicatrices are very popular, and some quaint designs are worked on their bodies. Lots of natives have a porpoise and a frigate bird carved in {108} this fashion on their bodies. Most of the designs are extremely crude, owing, no doubt, to the custom of the boys who cut them on each other with rough shells. Regarding their food and their ways of cooking it, and even the hours of having it, the natives are very happy-go-lucky, and there seems to be a free and easy sort of dropping in on each other when the smell of cooking is in the air, and of partaking of anything that is going. Mr. Hardy himself witnessed a peculiar incident of this kind at Simbo. A native had been out collecting eggs laid by some bird which hides them in the sand, and on returning the native went into an old chief’s house near the shore, where a small fire was burning on the floor just inside the door, and began stirring the inside of the eggs up in a piece of cocoa-nut shell. This he placed on the fire and continued stirring for a few minutes. Then apparently getting tired of the operation he got up and sauntered off. His place was immediately taken by another native, who also stirred for a while and then ate some of the mixture. Whether the eggs were not to his taste, or the mixture was too hot is not known, but he made a terrible face, put the shell back on the fire, and walked out of the hut. [Illustration 37: A STORMY DAY IN RUBIANA LAGOON, SOLOMON ISLANDS] {109}