heavy body, and try to picture what she must have been like when she fell from the rope into her lover's arms; but the exertion is too immense, the reconstruction is too difficult, the present is too overpowering. I cannot do it. I suck a big orange instead, and

give up trying. She is old and ugly now, but youth is everlasting, and the story is ever young.

To return, however, to Queen Makea. We were introduced to her by Mr. Moss, the British Resident, who is guide, philosopher, and friend to the Queen and Parliament. We all went into her English-furnished parlour, and sat down on horsehair-covered chairs. Makea understands English thoroughly, but will only speak her own language. We soon got tired of so one-sided a conversation.

Though very fat and big, like all queens in these parts of the world— I suppose they are fed differently, like queen bees, and don't take much exercise-Makea is very active if she choose, and when, to cause a diversion, I pointed out her photographs hanging on the wall, evidently taken some time ago, and remarked how like her it was, she jumped up, and took us all round the room, doing the honours of her pictures, among which were photographs of the family of the late Governor of New Zealand and his suite, who had visited her. She was very proud of these.

Our Australian photographers now appearing on the scene with their cameras, we all adjourned to the lawn, and were "arranged" by those artists, Jackey being told to keep her bare feet well back. Makea sat in front. Mr. Moss stood at her side; the French surgeon, in a white helmet hat, placed himself in polite attendance on our married lady, and I had the honour to be behind Miss Jackey. The position of a young sheep farmer, who was placed by the artists doubled up on the ground in front of the ladies, may not add to the dignity of the group, but accentuates its colonial verisimilitude. After being taken-first with our hats on, as shown in the frontispiece, then with them off-we were let go by the photographers. We all shook hands with the Queen at parting. Our banjoist, who lives in a Maori district in New Zealand, and is rather callous to royalty of this kind, distinguished himself by saying, quite seriously, "Well, good-bye, old lady." The amiable sovereign, understanding lady as a term of great respect, was much pleased, but we had some ado to keep our countenance.

Sauntering along the road, we pass a stream where women are washing clothes, while a number of young girls with nothing on earth to do all day, and just about as little on, are playing in the water enjoying themselves vastly, if we can judge by the laughing and splashing they make. The clothes are washed by beating them on stones with a stick. Each time you give out a shirt to be cleansed by this process there is less to do. When you have given it out six or seven times it disappears. Then we visit the newspaper office where the local paper, Te Torea, has lately been promoted from the stylograph to the printing press. It is issued in double column foolscap. One column is in Rarotongese, and the other in English. Part of the work is done by an assistant-a very intelligent halfcaste girl who also writes little editorials, and can pitch into a "big contemporary" three thousand miles off in capital style. Here is an example of her work in the stylograph days. I quote from the English column:

"There is a very nice account of the Tereora School in the Sydney Morning Herald; but Mr. Hutchen is printed the Rev. Mr. Butcher. So Te Torea is not the only paper that can make mistakes."

The same stylographed copy of Te Torea (March 23rd, 1895) contains the following paragraph about the old days, which is worth transcribing :

"In the old days" (before the New Zealand Protectorate) "the judge's business was to look into the matters brought before him from the beginning to the end. He often brought a man up himself to be judged, and was, then, complainant or policeman and lawyer as well as judge. For this reason he was sometimes prejudiced, and had, in fact, made up his mind before he heard the case on both sides. There was also a great many police, each of whom was really a judge, and that added to the mischief."

Perhaps there was safety in numbers! However, as the editor goes on to say, "things are different now."

By-and-bye we get exhausted, tired, thirsty. A friendly trader invites us into his grounds, and offers a drink of cocoanut juice. Calling a native boy, he says, "Get some cocoanuts for the ladies,” who look at the tall-straight and tall-slanting stems, and wonder how the nuts, which hang invitingly eighty feet above us, are to be reached. The youngster makes very easy work of it. He ties his feet together with a strip of pandanus leaf about twelves inches long, so that when stretched the flax-like strip allows him to place one foot pressed flat against the tree on each side. He puts his arms round the slender stem, climbs up quite easily, and throws the nuts on to the ground. A man stands ready to open them. To effect this he plants a stick firmly in the earth with a sharpened end upwards. Pressing the nutshell on the sharp point, he tears off the thick outside husk of coir piece by piece, leaving the half-ripe, hard-shelled nut exposed to view. With the long, heavy knife used for cutting up copra he strikes the nut sharply all round the top, and breaks off a piece the size of a Chilian dollar, making a drinking-cup of the nut itself. The brimming bowl of cool, colourless cocoanut-water is handed to the ladies, and they take their first drink from nature's most wonderful of fountains. The water of these half-ripe nuts is not so insipid as that of the very young fruit.

The drive round the island is along a good road skirting the shore the whole way. On the sea side, and half a mile to a mile in width, is the broad lagoon formed by the coral reef, on which in the distance can be seen beating the heavy waves, driven by the steady south-east trade winds. The lagoon is shallow. Big stones and sand banks,

showing up every here and there, form resting-places for the fishermen, who wade about holding up their spears ready to aim at any fish within fifty yards, or with kerosene cans fastened on their heads, bend down under water and catch those crustacea which are shown up in their hiding-places by the light reflected from the bright tin.

The coral, pounded into finest sand by the ceaseless waves, and bleached pure white by the sun and wind, lies in heavy masses along the inner beach, right up to the many-rooted pandanus (with fruit-cone resembling a magnified raspberry in great pips, the cores of which are eaten like artichokes)1 up to the slender coco-palms, and wild, white-tufted cotton and bright green coffee plants, and far up little creeks at the mouths of many streams. The narrow tires of our American buggy sink deeply into it as we pass.

On the land side village stretches out to village among the spreading trees, and ever and anon, after the village is left behind, little paths lead off the road to native solitary huts, where we get glimpses of a man or a woman hoeing in a clearing or of small plantations, or of fowls, pigs, and perhaps a cow, here and there. Over all hang the big mountain precipices, queer-looking, jagged high peaks, and jutting rocks.

Each bit of road, each section of breaking waves, of coral reef and still lagoon, each sandy creek, each clump of coco-palms and foliage and straggling village, little path, and towering piece of central mountain, is curiously and monotonously like the last. Only the changed position of the sun and wind to indicate it, one gets back to Avarua almost without realizing that one has been travelling right round the compass in a very small circle. Four miles before reaching Avarua again I and a fellow-passenger all the way from Flint Island, who speaks Tahitian, and consequently can make himself pretty well understood in Rarotongese, stop at the last village. We have a letter of introduction from the husband to his wife, the Queen, who lives in a comfortable wooden cottage. We are ushered into a well-furnished parlour containing sofa and chairs, and a central table with bright plush cover and a few books, and on the papered walls photographs and water-colour paintings, everything quite in English country fashion. On one side of the room is a large American symphony, and the local trader, a young Aucklander, sits down and plays it, and then puts on one of the musical drums which lie piled in a corner of the room. This turns on a whole barrel

1 The natives are also very fond of the juice which is extracted from these cones. From its leaves is obtained a fibre-like flax. Taking it all round, the pandanus tree is useful wealth from leaf to root.

organful of waltzes, which mechanically play to the evident delight of the Rarotongans, while we sit on easy chairs, each with a plate of oranges, peeled and cut across the middle, on our knee; and another plate politely placed at our feet on the tapestry carpet to catch the pips as they drop out of our thirsty mouths.

Rarotonga is in holiday mood and high fashion just now, for a queen of Samoa is on a visit to Makea, and with her retinue is being fêted at one of the villages with much beating of drums and ceremony of gifts. This great lady, Tui Ariki, wife of Malietoa, arrived last week by the missionary steamer John Williams. She is rather good-looking, but I am sorry to say would not allow herself to be photographed. She retired into the house while this group was