to farmering. I stuck a good while on the way up, for the
path there is largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot
of sprouts and saplings and stones to be removed. Then I
reached our clearing just where the streams join in one; it
had a fine autumn smell of burning, the smoke blew in the
woods, and the boys were pretty merry and busy. Now I had a
private design:-

[Map which cannot be reproduced]

The Vaita'e I had explored pretty far up; not yet the other
stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng in sing); and up
that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here quite
dry; it went through endless woods; about as broad as a
Devonshire lane, here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge
trees overhead in the sun, dripping lianas and tufted with
orchids, tree ferns, ferns depending with air roots from the
steep banks, great arums - I had not skill enough to say if
any of them were the edible kind, one of our staples here! -
hundreds of bananas - another staple - and alas! I had skill
enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no
fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard
it was that the bad banana flourished wild, and the good must
be weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him how
fortunate they were here, and how hungry were other lands by
comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of my dry stream
filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the
tropics; and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I
would have written to tell him that, for, me, IT HAD COME