was, the moon seemed quite paled for a few minutes afterwards. We have
seen many meteors, falling-stars, and shooting-stars since we left
Valparaiso, but none so fine as the one this evening.

_Friday, December 1st_.--The sun rose grandly, but the heavy black and
red clouds, looking like flames and smoke from a furnace, gave promise
of more rain. The heat was greater to-day than any we have yet felt;
and it is now nearly mid-winter at home.

[Illustration: Maitea.]

At 5 a.m. we made the island of Maitea, and expected to reach it in
about an hour and a half; but the wind fell light, and it was a
quarter to ten before we got into the gig and set out for the shore.
There are not many instructions about landing, either in Captain Cook
or Findlay, but the latter mentions that houses are to be found on the
south side of the island. We thought, however, we could distinguish
from the yacht a little cove, close to some huts, at another part of
the shore, where the surf did not break so heavily. We accordingly
rowed straight for it, and as we approached we could see the natives
coming down from all parts to meet us, the women dressed in the same
sort of long, bright, flowing garments we had seen at Hao Harpe, with
the addition of garlands round their necks and heads, the men wearing
gay-coloured loin-cloths, shirts of Manchester cotton stuff, flying
loose in the wind, and sailors' hats with garlands round them, or
coloured silk handkerchiefs--red and orange evidently having the
preference--tied over their heads and jauntily knotted on one side.
Several of the men waded out into the surf to meet us, sometimes
standing on a rock two feet above the water, sometimes buried up to
their necks by a sudden wave. But the rocks were sharp, the only