beetle (brown and glossy) were devoured after being warmed through on the ashes.  When the tomahawk in the process of cutting out damaged a grub, Mickie with a leer of satisfaction would eat the wriggling insect with a feigned apology—­“Me bin cut that fella.”  Baked in the ashes the chrysalids have a wholesome, clean appearance, with a flavour of coco-nut, and the “white fella” always came in for his share.

Mickie’s bush craft, his knowledge of the habits of birds and insects and the ways of fish, is enviable.  Signs and sounds quite indeterminate to “white fellas” are full of meaning to him.  Of course, by failure to comprehend such things, no doubt he has many a time gone hungry, and the keenness of his appetite has so sharpened his perceptions that he is seldom at fault now.  The scratching of a scrub fowl among decayed leaves is heard in the jungle at an extraordinary distance, and a splash or ripple far out on the edge of the reef tells him that a shark or kingfish is driving the mullet into the lagoon, where he may easily spear them.  He can tell to a quarter of an hour when the fish will leave off biting; he hears the scamper of the iguana in the grass when the “white fella” fails to catch a sound, and knows when the giant crabs will be “walking about” in the mangroves.  He is trustworthy and obliging, and ready to impart all the lore he possesses, an expert boomerang thrower, a dead shot with a nulla-nulla, and an eater of everything that comes in his way except “pigee-pigee.”  Having long had the pleasure of his acquaintance, I can cordially wish him a never-failing supply of “patter” and tobacco, and surcease of “monda”; and what more can the heart of a blackfellow desire—­save rum?

TOM:  HIS WIVES—­HIS BATTLES

Tom has been thrice married—­at least he has possessed three wives.  For a few months he had two at a time, and placidly endured the consequences.

Of the bride of his youth history has no word—­for Tom is the only historian of that period, and he ever bears sorrows in silence.

Nelly, whose country borders the beach of the mainland opposite, could not speak his language when he fought for her fairly and honourably, and won her from her first man.  Though reared but a little over 2 miles apart, these twain have totally different words for the same objects.  During married life each has added to the vocabulary of the other.

When we took possession of the island, Nelly would glide into the jungle like a frightened snake and hide for days.  She was wild, suspicious, uncleanly, uncouth—­a combination of all the shortcomings of the savage.  Now she lights the fire every morning, kneads the bread, makes the porridge and the coffee, feeds the fowls, washes plates and clothes, scrubs floors, and generally does the work of a domestic.  She is cheerfully industrious, emphatic in her admiration of pictures, and smokes continuously, preferring a