combined with that of Speaker of the Parliament. To assist in determining the boundaries of the coaling-station, he brought with him a body-servant and a young man armed with a theodolite, an instrument which proved of great value to us, though not in the way intended by its makers. By his charming manners and his hearty laugh he endeared himself to all on board, though he could not speak a word of any language but his own, and I was not always at hand to interpret. He lived nominally in the captain's cabin, but though he ate heartily and was quite at his ease, he showed the instinct of an old sailor in carrying up his blanket to the deck, where he was found in the morning asleep in a canvas chair.
Having a curiosity to visit Falcon Island, we did not take the direct route to Vavau. Early in 1896 Falcon Reef, then a patch of coral awash at low water, suddenly broke into eruption and cast up an island of pumice stone more than 100 feet high. Mr. Shirley Baker, who watched the eruption from a schooner, described it to me as a terrific spectacle, as indeed it must have been, for the sea had access to the crater, and was flung aloft in explosions of steam. As soon as the mass was cool enough to stand upon, the
