Should the chief perish at sea, or be killed in a warlike expedition, and be eaten by his enemies, the loloku is shown as carefully as if he had been buried on shore, and his relatives try to compensate him for his adverse fate, by killing an unusual number of women as his attendants. Nearly twenty women have thus been sacrificed on the death of a young chief who was drowned at sea. The graves of chiefs and their wives are marked by tombs. These are sometimes nothing but stones at the head and foot of the grave, or large cairns of stones piled on the deceased. Sometimes they are roofs from three to six feet in height, decorated, after Fijian custom, with patterns worked in sinnet. One tomb, that of a chief’s wife, was a very remarkable one. Her husband had a large mound of earth thrown up, and faced with stones. On the top of the mound was a double canoe, forty feet in length, held firmly in its place by being imbedded in earth. Fine shingle was strewn on the deck, and mats were spread on the shingle for the reception of the body. Sand was then heaped over the canoe, and on the sand was laid the body of a little child of whom the deceased woman had been very fond. Over all was then built a large roof, made of mahogany, and adorned with white cowrie-shells. CHAPTER XCVIII. THE SOLOMON ISLANDS AND NEW HEBRIDES. CHARACTER, DRESS, CUSTOMS. POSITION OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS -- REASON FOR THE NAME OF THE GROUP -- CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES -- CANNIBALISM -- DRESS AND ORNAMENTS -- NEW IRELAND AND NEW BRITAIN -- NOMAD CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES -- CAVE HOUSES -- THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS -- DISTINGUISHING MARKS OF THE CHIEFS, AND THEIR DOMINION OVER THE PEOPLE -- THE BOUKA ISLAND -- THE NEW HEBRIDES -- MODE OF GOVERNMENT, AND DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE -- THE INHABITANTS OF VATÉ -- CURIOUS DRESS OF THE WOMEN -- ORNAMENTS OF THE HOUSES -- TAUNA AND ERRUMANGA -- TRADE IN SANDAL WOOD -- ANEITEUM AND VANIKORO. Between New Guinea and the Fiji group lie the Solomon (or Salomon) Islands. They were discovered, as far as we know, by Alvero de Mendana, who touched upon them in the year 1567. Being desirous of inducing his countrymen, who held in those days the chief place among sailors, to visit and colonize so fertile a land, he concocted a pious fraud, and called the group by the name of Solomon Islands, as being the Ophir from which Solomon’s ships brought the vast quantities of gold with which he adorned the Temple and his own palace. His scheme failed, inasmuch as, when he again went in search of the islands, he could not find them, the imperfect astronomical instruments of that day being far inferior to those of the present time, by means of which a competent observer can tell within a few yards his exact place on the earth.