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Eastward and across the now shallowed water of the lagoon was our village of Leassé, the russet-hued, saddle-backed houses of thatch peeping out from the coco-palms and breadfruit-trees; beyond, the broken, rugged outline of the towering mountain range, garmented from base to summit with God's mantle of living green; overhead a sky ot wondrous, un-specked blue.

Opposite, the rival tiers of crowded seats were pricked out lavishly with the rich but less brilliant brown, while at the end of the enclosure, where the throngs entered, a smaller stand flaunted the two colors in almost equal proportions. And between stretched a smooth expanse of russet-hued turf ribbed with white lines that glared in the afternoon sunlight.

I remarked a long-tailed jay called Gobiyan or Fat , russet-hued ringdoves, the modest honey-bird, corn quails, canary-coloured finches, sparrows gay as those of Surinam, humming-birds with a plume of metallic lustre, and especially a white-eyed kind of maina, called by the Somal, Shimbir Load or the cow-bird.

Almost circular in shape, and in no place more than fifty feet in height, it was covered with an ever-verdant forest of breadfruit, pandanus, orange and palm-groves, broken here and there by the russet-hued villages of the natives, built just where the shining beach met the green of the land.

It was some semi-public place of opulent entertainment; and far surpassed any thing of the kind I had ever seen before. The floor was tesselated with snow-white, and russet-hued marbles; and echoed to the tread, as if all the Paris catacombs were underneath.