Next to this house came the "office," with a little cubby partitioned off one side. I looked through the pigeonholes of the cubby and found a packet of thin sheets of tortoise-shell and a large parcel of a native woman's hair. Mildewed maps hang on the walls, the ceiling is adorned with ten rusty cutlasses, old ledgers lie about, and a bag of cotton lies on the floor as though it had just been dropped there. On one of the sides of the room is a broad, white band with painted black letters "PEERLESS wrecked on Suwarrow Island." In one corner stands a box of bits of old iron which are put in with cocoanuts when they are planted. It is called "cocoanut manure." This reminds me that the Paumotuans plant with their cocoanuts a rusty nail and a ship's biscuit. In the outer room sixteen decaying muskets are ranged in a rack. Shelves are filled with all sorts of tools, nails, axes, bush knives, tins of sardines and salmon, and a quantity of mouldy shoes in children's sizes only; among the shoes were a toy chest of drawers and a box of moulting feathers.
Passing another building containing miscellaneous wreckage, blue and white china among the rest, I came to the manager's house, a large, wooden-floored structure with a thatched roof. Here I found a native man at work on accounts, his old dog at his feet, which were wrapped up in the Union Jack to keep them warm. This room was evidently designed by a sailor and gave one quite the feeling of being on board ship. Instead of windows there were port-holes, three on either side, with a couple flanking the front door. Covers, painted black to imitate iron, could be screwed over the ports like deadlights on shipboard. The doors, one in either end, opened in two parts, being divided across the middle. The furniture consisted of two bedsteads of native wood with cocoa sennit laced across them to serve for mattresses. A couple of bunches of bananas hung from the roof. Against the wall hung the death certificate of the dead man, which, in such cases, must be the only proof that the death was due to natural causes, and not a crime. I copied the certificate.
Samuli lee aho 2 .... he motu nai mate he malu va he tau fro ia gauali 2 1889 Ka Papu Ko Maro tolu ne ha nie ne tamu Ka Patiti ma miti San ma J ketiti ma Paemani Koe tau wine Kwenia kia mounina kelie iki lagi ke he tan ban nei kua hobooko kiai a tautala June ati 2--1890