family at large. Mr. Ibea and his younger son, who is bubbling out conversation in Benga, as he has ever been doing since I came to the island, come with me a little way, and then we part.
I notice that the sea is rough, and the lagoons behind the beaches stink worse even than usual: no wonder the mission found it as unhealthy here as on the mainland! The fine sand blows in the wind, stinging my face—in fact it is bad weather, but I have had enough of walking to and fro along this sandy beach, while Eveke courts his mother-in-law elect, and, in order to get more time to do so, tries to frighten me about the weather.
Arrived at Nassau Bay and have the usual job of hunting out Eveke and the crew from the village, and the usual delays. We wait for the turn of the tide on Eveke's advice. It would, I am sure, have been better to have gone out before the slack, so as to have had the full tide for Esterias, but I let him have his way and wait patiently in the wooden, European-fashion built house which I learn belongs to Eveke's uncle. It does not give one the idea of being much lived in.
It is fairly clean, the walls inside are painted white, with the door and window-frames a bright cobalt blue. Cobalt blue, by the bye, seems a great feature on this island. I wonder whether a cargo of it was ever washed ashore from a wreck, or whether it is a special line of goods for "paying off" in? One rarely sees any other coloured paint. There is one other little village I have been passing through daily since I have been here, that has each house door painted with it and white paint in stripes, diagonal bands, straight bands, plain and chess-board patterns, till it's as good as names and numbers to that village. It would be far and away better for postmen and diners-out than a plan in vogue in a far away London suburb I know of, wherein the christening of the villas seems to have been done by a gardener, giving the more ordinary individual gay times for the houses are named after trees, and which particular shrub your friend lives at often slips down a hole in your memory, when you find yourself confronted by the front gates of "the Bays," "Lilacs," "Elms," "Oaks," "Laburnums," &c. This house of Eveke's uncle wants no name or
