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I tried to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him.
At periods of great activity, the natives climb to the top and bring sacrifices to appease it, by throwing cocoa-nuts and yam into the crater. We touched at Port Sandwich, and then steamed along the coast of Malekula, calling every few miles at some plantation to discharge goods, horses, cattle and fowls, and take on maize or coprah.
A young Ambrymese who had worked for me for some days, wanted to enlist in my service when I left, although he grew tearful at the thought of Malekula, where I intended to go next, and where he was convinced he would be killed.
Even to-day, it is not rare for a man from Ambrym to settle for a while on Malekula, so as to be initiated into some rites which he then imports to Ambrym; and the Ambrymese pay poets large fees to teach them poems which are to be sung at certain feasts, accompanied by dances. Unhappily, I never had occasion to attend one of these "sing-songs."
The bones are generally used in making arrow-heads and lance-points, and the head, which is useless, is thrown away in most islands, or buried again; but in the south of Malekula, the heads are kept, and the face is reproduced in a plastic material of fibres, clay and sticky juice. The work is very cleverly done, and the face looks quite natural, with fine, slightly Semitic features.
I left most of my luggage behind, and the schooner of the French survey party was to bring it to Port Olry later on. After a passage considerably prolonged by contrary winds, we arrived at Vao, a small island north-east of Malekula. When one has sailed along the lifeless, greyish-green shores of Malekula, Vao is like a sunbeam breaking through the mist.
How one learns to appreciate the British impassiveness which helps one, in such conditions, to spend a perfectly happy day with a pipe and a talk about the weather! On the morning of the third day we lay off the east coast of Malekula, on a blue, shining sea, with all the landscape as peaceful and bright as if there were no such thing as a cyclone in the world.
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