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distant are the islands of New Georgia, Guadalcanar (8,006 feet high), St. Christoval (4,100 feet high), the first opposite Choiseul Island, while the last extends nearly 100 miles farther to the south-east than Malayta Island.

The whole group is volcanic, and there is an active volcano in Guadalcanar Island.

Labourers are to be got in fair numbers from the Solomons, and a good number of them are now working well for white settlers in Fiji. I had for some time a Solomon Island servant, and found him willing and obedient. One thing grievously offended him, and that was to tell him that if he was sent home his friends would cook and eat him.' The Solomon Islanders at present are still cannibals, but this 'boy's' indignation at the idea of his being eaten, shows that even the Solomons are rapidly going ahead.

A few white traders dwell in the group, and manage to dwell in peace with the natives; but the progress of the Solomons is inseparably bound up with the labour trade of the Fiji Islands. Men returning from a three-year term of service, well treated, and well fed, and fairly paid by white men, will in the end act as first-class missionaries of civilisation among these people, and prepare the way for better things.

The Solomon Islanders are skilful in carving and canoe-building, and most of their implements are inlaid with mother-of-pearl shell. Although in the main of the Papuan race, they are crossed with brown Polynesian blood, and most of their rites and cere-. monies are like those I have described in dealing with

Fiji and Tonga. In one of their islands, however, the dead are all buried at sea. At St. Christoval the corpse is kept till the flesh drops from the bones, the skull and finger-bones are then retained as heirlooms, and the remainder of the body exposed on a high platform. Infanticide is common, women are killed on the death of a chief, and the wife or sister of a deceased man first stupefies herself, and then commits suicide by hanging. A kind of suttee, evidently derived from the East, prevails, or has prevailed, in most parts of Polynesia.

The structure of St. Christoval is throughout the same; it is a long chain of lofty mountains, with gentle slopes towards the sea; the shores are low, and are often furnished with a belt of mangroves, the edge of which is washed by the tide. An active and vigorous vegetation, of the usual tropical description, covers every inch of the soil, which in fact is hardly to be seen. Large rivers descend from the hills, and the climate is good. My brother is one of the few Europeans that I know who have resided in the Solomon Islands, and his account of the fertility of the soil of other islands in the group which I did not visit fairly astonished me with their capacity for producing agricultural wealth of all sorts.

The ivory or Corrossos-nut is to be found in abundance, while betel-nuts are also plentiful. The Solomons seem to be a favourite resort for those extraordinary looking birds, the hornbills, which grow to a size exceeding that of the domestic fowl, while their enormous bill resembles that of the grossbeak of South America.

There are orchids peculiar to the group, and a large tree grows there (I have forgotten the name) whose leaves are edible and much resemble those of the domestic cabbage, which in most of the coral islands will not grow. A great future lies before the Solomons. I believe that a few years more will find this dreaded group well on the high road of civilisation; but it wants the helping hands of British justice and British gold. The success of the Crown Colony of Fiji is in a small way demonstrating the former; the latter would in time assuredly acquire rich interest.

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