built after the following manner :-Three rows of posts are driven about three feet into the earth, those on each side being about five feet clear from the ground, and the middle row fifteen feet. Each row supports a beam placed horizontally, secured by cocoa-nut-husk lines, and from the sides other beams of a lighter substance are placed diagonally, meeting in an angle at, and supported by the middle beam, forming a roof of a steep declivity, which is covered over by mats of cocoa-nut leaves with projecting eaves. The walls are made by filling up the interstices between the posts with similar mats, except at two, three, or only one entrance, to serve the purpose of a door and chimney, as may suit the inclination of the builder. A few spare mats are generally kept, on which the inmates sleep without any covering. In the centre of each house is a square fire-place, with a post driven securely into the earth at each corner, which supports a hurdle where the kitchen utensils are placed, consisting of a few wooden bowls carved rudely and hollowed out from solid blocks of timber. The fire-place is sunk two feet below the level of the floor, and paved with small black stones very hard. Here a lively fire is continually kept up during the day for culinary purposes, and during the night to drive away the musquitoes.

Their clothing consists of a belt formed of

slit cane or rattan, polished highly to a fine black. This slit rattan is twisted into a concatenation of small hoops, with a piece of cloth sewed to the part intended to be next the skin, in order to prevent the wearer from being cut by the edges of the cane. From this girdle a a piece of cloth depends in front, which passes between the legs, and is brought up behind and fastened to the belt. The cloth is about three feet long by one wide, and is manufactured from the Chinese paper-tree at some of the neighbouring islands. The dress of the females consists of a belt round their loins, similar to that worn by the men, from which is suspended a kilt reaching to the knee.

The old men do not dress their hair, but wear it in a state of nature; except a few, who use lime as hair powder: but the young men procure a quantity of hair from the dead or their vanquished enemies, which they model into a conical shape, resembling a small sugar-loaf, and about twelve inches high, which is wrapped up in cloth (red if it can be procured) exactly fitted to it, and thus attached to the back part of the head, forming a peak, that gives the wearer a most odd appearance. The young women wear their hair after the same fashion. The cartilage of the ears is perforated and stretched to an enormous length, till it reaches the shoulders. The diameter of the perforation

is about six inches, into which they introduce the first link of a chain of about thirty tortoiseshell ear-rings, each about an inch in diameter. Few of them have good teeth, from their immoderate use of lime and betel-nut, to which they are greater slaves than the most determined Dutch smoker is to tobacco. Children of both sexes run about naked till their tenth year, when they are initiated into the use of the betel-nut and clothing at the same time. Bracelets of different kinds are much in use among them; the neatest kind that I observed was one of matting intermixed with small shells, in the workmanship of which some ingenuity was displayed. Red cloth was an article much in demand, for the purpose of adorning their headdresses, which in the absence of this sumptuous appendage was generally set off with tapper.

Of their religious ceremonies I can give no account, not having had an opportunity of acquiring any information on the subject.

Female children are betrothed to boys of their own age, and when arrived at maturity the marriage is consummated, when all the inhabitants of the village celebrate the event in feasting and rejoicing. The island is but thinly inhabited, there not being more villages on the whole coast than are laid down on the chart; the whole population I think does not exceed 1,000 of both sexes and all ages, one-fourth of

whom are diseased by ulcers on their limbs, cancer in the face, and a disease confined to the lymphatic system, called the elephantiasis.

Their canoes are formed out of the trunk of a tree as soft as deal, about fifteen or twenty feet long, through which an excavation of about six inches broad is cut, where the rowers sit with their legs before one another, and up to their calves in the hollow: the upper part being smooth, serves as the seat. All their canoes have outriggers, which are placed on the weather side, connected with the vessel by planks, and sometimes by a basket-work forming a kind of platform, upon which the warriors stand to fight, and place their bows and arrows ready for use. The whole breadth of the vessel, including the wicker-work communicating with the outrigger, is six feet, the lower part being very well modelled for swift motion through the water.

By the natives' account this island was never visited by Europeans, either before or since the ships were wrecked till now. Captain Edwards of the Pandora, passed midway between Mannicolo and Otooboa, and named the former Pitt's Island. On some charts it is called Recherche's Island, but how it acquired that name I am ignorant. The ship commanded by Admiral d'Entrecasteaux, while in search of la Pérouse, was named Recherche; but the island could not have been named by that commander,

since he never visited it, not having been nearer to it than forty miles, according to the track laid down in the chart as the one which he pursued on his way from New Caledonia to Santa Cruz. In Labillardière's narrative of d'Entrecasteaux's voyage, no mention is made of their having seen Mannicolo. The first land they sighted after quitting Huon Island was Santa Cruz, where they remained a few days cruizing off and on, being as usual unsuccessful in finding anchorage. It was here that, on sending a boat on shore, the crew were shot at by a native, who slightly scratched one of the men in the forehead with an arrow, of which he died seventeen days after, not deeming the wound at first of sufficient consequence to trouble himself with applying a remedy to it. This circumstance, combined with the number of men Mandano lost in a similar manner, corroborates the belief of their arrows being poisoned.

From the geographical situation of Mannicolo, and the similarity in appearance, manners, and customs between its inhabitants and those of Santa Cruz, with whom a constant intercourse is kept up, it ought to be considered one of the Queen Charlotte's Islands.

The natives are fancifully tattooed on the back, with figures of fishes, lizards, &c.; but owing to the dark colour of their skin the marks in general are not visible. The lime used with