I have gained my point, and will soon have the crowds—­no need to wait so long to have the baits picked up now, and, after a few more such temptings, it is done.  I am besieged by the noisest crowd I have ever met, and am truly glad to escape on board the boat.  We went to the vessel, and brought her round to the west side, where we anchored, and I again landed.  Crowds met me on the beach, but no men.  I gave my beads indiscriminately, and soon there was a quarrel between the old ladies and young ones.  The latter were ordered off, and, because they would not go, I must go.  The old ladies insisted on my getting into the boat, and, being now assisted by the few men we met in the canoe, I thought it better to comply.  Long after we left the beach we heard those old cracked, crabbed voices anathematizing the younger members of that community.  I suppose I was the first white mortal to land on that sacred shore, and I must have been to them a strange object indeed.

I am fully convinced that this is the Woman’s Land, and can easily account for its being called so by stray canoes from the westward.

After leaving the island, we steamed round to the westward of the small islands in Amazon Bay, where we intended to spend a quiet Sabbath after a hard week’s work, and previous to beginning another.  After anchoring, canoes with men and boys kept crossing from the mainland, and all day Sunday it was the same.  They halted at the islands, and with the next tide went on to Toulon.  Landing on the Saturday evening to shoot pigeons, we met several natives, and learned that their plantations were on the mainland, and that they crossed to plant and fight, taking their boys with them.  Afterwards at Aroma, they told me they left their wives and daughters at home in charge of a few men, whilst the majority crossed to the main, and stayed away for some time, returning with food, to spend a few days at home on the island.  During their absence, the women sail about and trade, going as far as Dedele in Cloudy Bay, being one and the same people.  Canoes from the westward might have called at Toulon when the men were on the mainland fighting and planting, and seeing only women, would soon report a woman’s land.  Many years ago an Elema canoe was carried away there.  They were kindly treated by the Amazons, but at Dedele on returning, were attacked and several killed; they naturally reported a woman’s land too.

The following week we visited Dedele in Cloudy Bay, which had been visited two years previously by Messrs. Lawes and McFarlane.  The village was barricaded with high and thick mangrove sticks, with a narrow opening to the sea.  They objected to my landing, and formed a crescent in front of the boat.  I sprung ashore and asked for the chief.  I held out a piece of hoop-iron, and a rather short, well-built man, dressed with boar’s tusks and other ornaments, stepped forward and took my present.  He took me by the hand, and led me to the village, just allowing