The people of Meralava live on taro, which they grow in terraced fields, the water being obtained from holes in the rocks, and on cocoa-nuts, of which the island yields a fair supply.
The following day we started for Ureparapara, also a volcanic island, with an enormous crater, one side of which has fallen in; because, as the natives say, a great fish knocked against it. The sea has penetrated into the interior of the crater, forming a lovely bay, so that ships now lie at anchor where formerly the lava boiled and roared.
In consequence of the frequent intercourse with whites, the population is scanty. There is hardly a level patch, except the small strip at the base of the slope and the great reef outside. Here, too, we had difficulty in landing, but in the evening we found an ideal anchorage inside the bay. The water was scarcely ruffled, and little wavelets splashed on the shore, where mangrove thickets spread their bright foliage. Huge trees bent over the water, protecting the straw roofs of a little village. In the deep shade some natives were squatting round fires, and close by some large outrigger-canoes lay on the beach. On three sides the steep wooded slopes of the former crater's walls rise up to a sharply dented ridge, and it all looks like a quiet Alpine lake, so that one involuntarily listens for the sound of cow-bells. Instead, there is the call of pigeons, and the dull thunder of the breakers outside.
We took a holiday in this charming bay; and though the joys of picnicking were not new to us, the roasting of some pigeons gave us a festive sensation and a hearty appetite. The night under the bright, starlit sky, on board the softly rocking launch, wrapped me in a feeling of safety and coziness I had not enjoyed for a long time.
Along the steepest path imaginable I climbed next morning to the mountain's edge. The path often led along smooth rocks, where lianas served as ropes and roots as a foothold; and I was greatly surprised to find many fields on top, to which the women have to climb every day and carry the food down afterwards, which implies acrobatic feats of no mean order.
Ureparapara was the northernmost point I had reached so far, and the neighbourhood of the art-loving Solomon Islands already made itself felt. Whereas in the New Hebrides every form of art, except mat-braiding, is at once primitive and decadent, here any number of pretty things are made, such as daintily designed ear-sticks, bracelets, necklaces, etc.; I also found a new type of drum, a regular skin-drum, with the skin stretched across one end, while the other is stuck into the ground. The skin is made of banana leaves. These and other points mark the difference between this people and that of the New Hebrides. As elsewhere all over the Banks group, the people have long faces, high foreheads, narrow, often hooked, noses, and a light skin. Accordingly, it would seem that they are on a higher mental plane than those of the New Hebrides, and cannibalism is said never to have existed here.