All one morning it rained, and at noon the cyclone broke, coming from the south-west, as it had done the first time, but with threefold violence. We sat on the veranda, ready to jump off at any moment, in case the house should be blown away. The view was wiped out by the mist; dull crashes resounded in the forest, branches cracked and flew whirling through the air, all isolated trees were broken off short, and the lianas tangled and torn. The blasts grew ever more violent and frequent, and if the house had not been protected by the mountain, it could never have resisted them. As it was, it shook and creaked, and a little iron shed went rolling along the ground like a die. Down in the plain the storm tore the leaves off the palms, and uprooted trees and blew down houses. The cyclone reached its climax at sunset, then the barometer rose steadily, and suddenly both wind and rain ceased. The stillness lasted for about half an hour and then the storm set in again, this time from the north, striking the house with all its strength; fortunately it was not so violent as at first. With the rising barometer the storm decreased and changed its direction to the east. All next day it rained and blew; but on the third morning the storm died out in a faint breeze from the south-east, and when we came to reckon up our damages, we found that it might have been worse. Meanwhile the employes had had time to recover from their orgy. A brilliant day dried the damp house, and soon everything resumed a normal aspect except the forest, which looked brown and ragged, like autumn woods at home. I made use of the first calm day to visit the lonely little islet of Meralava. As it has no anchorage, no one can land there except in quiet weather, and so it had come about that the company's employe had had no communication with the outside world for four months. The island is an extinct volcano, a regular cone, with the crater as a deep cavity in the top. There is hardly a level square metre on the whole island, and the shores rise steeply out of the sea; only a few huge lava blocks form a base, on which the swell breaks and foams. When we reached the island, this swell was so heavy as to render landing almost impossible. All we could do was to take the employe aboard and return home. I was very sorry to have to give up my visit to Meralava, as the natives, though all christianized, have preserved more of their old ways than those of other islands, owing to their infrequent intercourse with civilization. For the same reason, the population is quite large; but every time a ship has landed an epidemic goes through the island, the germs of which appear to be brought by the vessels, and the natives evidently have very small powers of resistance. We may here observe on a small scale what has taken place all over the archipelago in the degeneration and decimation of the aborigines.