to bring the affair to a favourable termination, the chiefs being prohibited from ever again displaying the offensive banner. In my notices of Wetta, I mentioned that the village of Sau, on that island, had been destroyed by the people of Lette. From the information concerning the affair that I was enabled to collect here, it appeared that nine natives of Lette, who had visited the village of Sau on a trading voyage, had been massacred by the inhabitants, who had been tempted to commit the deed by a desire to gain possession of the goods that the traders had brought with them. According to the law of retaliation which obtains among the natives of the Archipelago, this deed demanded vengeance on the part of the people of Lette, who proceeded to Wetta with a number of armed prahus, and totally destroyed the village of Sau. This affair had naturally given rise to the direct enmity between the natives of the two islands, which entirely put a stop to the commercial intercourse that had previously subsisted between them, and but for our own interposition, a reconciliation could never have been effected. This case affords a striking example of the detriment these islanders suffer from the barbarous nature of their laws, or rather customs. When distributing the presents, sent by the Government, at the general meeting of the chiefs, I was requested to apportion the shares for each village, the chiefs themselves candidly confessing that since they all considered themselves as equal in point of rank, were this duty left to themselves, it would certainly give rise to a renewal of the discord that had so long prevailed among them. Although their old _adats_ or customs, are so absurd and contradictory, that their interests are greatly injured by maintaining them, they yet, with an obstinacy for which it is difficult to account, submit to and revere them as sacred and inviolable laws.