While waiting at Dip Point for an opportunity to cross to Pentecoste, I saw the volcano in full activity, and one day it rained ashes, so that the whole country was black as if strewn with soot, and the eruptions shook the house till the windows rattled. I made a second ascent of the mountain, but had such bad weather that I saw nothing at all. We came back, black as chimney-sweeps from the volcanic dust we had brushed off the bushes. I heard later that the extinct eastern crater had unexpectedly broken out again, and that several lava streams were flowing towards the coast.
Pentecoste, a long, narrow island running north and south, resembles Maevo in shape. My host here was a missionary who seemed to connect Christianity with trousers and other details of civilization. It was sad to see how many quaint customs, harmless enough in themselves, were needlessly destroyed. The wearing of clothes constitutes a positive danger to health, as in this rainy climate the natives are almost constantly soaked, do not trouble to change their wet clothes, sleep all night in the same things and invariably catch cold. Another source of infection is their habit of exchanging clothes, thus spreading all sorts of diseases. That morals are not improved by the wearing of clothes is a fact; for they are rather better in the heathen communities than in the so-called Christian ones. It is to be hoped that the time is not far off when people will realize how very little these externals have to do with Christianity and morality; but there is reason to fear that it will then be too late to save the race.
We undertook an excursion into the interior, to a district whose inhabitants had only recently been pacified by Mr. F., my host; the tribes we visited were very primitive, especially on the east coast, where there is little contact with whites. The people were still cannibals, and I had no difficulty in obtaining some remnants of a cannibal meal.
We frequently tried to obtain information about the organization of the family among these natives, but, being dependent on biche la mar, we made small progress. My observations were supplemented later by the Rev. Mr. Drummond, for which I am very much indebted to him; some of these observations may be of interest.