On my return to Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time. His post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very few servants. The one here had, besides a teacher from Malekula, an old native who had quarrelled with his chief and separated from his clan. The good man was very anxious to marry, but no girl would have him, as he had had two wives, and had, quite without malice, strangled his second wife by way of curing her of an illness. I was reminded of this little episode every time I looked at the man's long, bony fingers.
One day a native asked me for medicine for his brother. I tried to find out the nature of the ailment, and decided to give him calomel, urging his brother to take it to him at once. The man had eaten a quarter of a pig all by himself, but, of course, it was said that he had been poisoned. His brother, instead of hurrying home, had a little visit with his friends at the coast, until it was dark and he was afraid to go home through the bush alone; so he waited till next morning, when it was too late. The man's death naturally made the murder theory a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut, with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour, all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war, which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure.
The Messrs. Th. had been kind enough to invite me to go on a recruiting trip to Maevo, the most north-easterly island of the group. Here I found a very scanty population, showing many traces of Polynesian admixture in appearance and habits. The weather was nasty and our luck at recruiting poor, so that after a fortnight we returned to Hog Harbour. I went to Port Olry to my old priest's house, and a few days later Mr. Th. came in his cutter to take me to Tassimaloun in Big Bay; so I bade a hearty farewell to the good Father, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting again.