the value of the pearls, which would increase it by at least another
3,000_l_ or 4,000_l_.

I speak from personal experience when I say that every necessary of
life on board ship, and many luxuries, can be procured at Tahiti.
American tinned fruits and vegetables beat English ones hollow.
Preserved milk is uncertain--sometimes better, sometimes worse, than
what one buys at home. Tinned salmon is much better. Australian
mutton, New Zealand beef, and South Sea pork, leave nothing to be
desired in the way of preserved meat. Fresh beef, mutton, and butter
are hardly procurable, and the latter, when preserved, is uneatable. I
can never understand why they don't take to potting and salting down
for export the _best_ butter, at some large Irish or Devonshire farm,
instead of reserving that process for butter which is just on the turn
and is already almost unfit to eat; the result being that, long before
it has reached a hot climate, it is only fit to grease carriage-wheels
with. It could be done, and I feel sure it would pay, as good butter
would fetch almost any price in many places. Some Devonshire butter,
which we brought with us from England, is as good now, after ten
thousand miles in the tropics, as it was when first put on board; but
a considerable proportion is very bad, and was evidently not in proper
condition in the first instance.

We had intended going afterwards to the coral reef with the children
to have a picnic there, and had accordingly given the servants leave
to go ashore for the evening; but it came on to rain heavily, and we
were obliged to return to the yacht instead. The servants had,
however, already availed themselves of the permission they had
received, and there was therefore no one on board in their department;
so we had to unpack our basket and have our picnic on deck, under the