In the villages there was no clearly defined form of government. There was, of course, invariably a chief, but his authority was not great, and nowhere did I see an autocrat, except Mavai, with whom the reader is already well acquainted. There is no regular council of elders, but in isolated instances the younger men may go to the elder for advice. The villagers, however, are wonderfully conservative in their institutions, and marriage between distant villages is uncommon. The man who dares to bring a wife from a distance gains great credit for an enterprising person. At Amana, for instance, we found an interpreter who had married a Foula woman, and this person was accounted strong-minded. He had either learnt the Foula dialect from his wife or had acquired it while he was staying at Foula courting her. The method of wooing is, as with all primitive peoples, more commercial than romantic. The intending suitor generally comes to the point during a tribal dance which has been arranged by calling from hill to hill. If the woman agrees to the match, the wooer does not think it at all necessary to make overtures to her father, but should negotiations be required he is neither laggard nor bashful. He puts the price in his bag and approaches the house of the sire, entering boldly and sitting down unbidden. Not infrequently the girl also comes in and sits probably in a hammock, listening to the debate on which her destiny hangs. The suitor at once names his price; if the old man thinks this is a promising bargain, he shows himself quite willing to discuss matters. If there is tobacco, the suitor takes up his host’s “Bau-bau,” draws a few whiffs, passes it to the father, scratches his head violently with both hands, and proceeds to haggle. Should the father think the match a good thing, he seldom withholds his consent long, but if he considers the young man is under-bidding, he holds out stiffly till the youth has raised the price sufficiently. As soon as the father consents, the bride is taken away at once and without any fuss. There is no ceremony and no wedding feast. The women are the agricultural labourers of Papua. Early in the morning they go out to till the gardens and the yam- or taro-patch; they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Every night at Hanuabada we used to watch the long files of them wading across the shallow channels to the villages, carrying the great bundles of wood they had collected. Their families are not large, seldom more than two or three children, and though they treat them quite kindly, there is no demonstrative affection. At seven years old the children are expected to assist in domestic affairs, and begin to take their little part of carrying water and firewood to the village. Their faggots are tied up with wild cane string and are carried home on the women’s backs.