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safe. Ten stone is a fairn weight to carry 50 or 60 yards on your shoulders without a break, especially over a very rough coral bottom, but when I saw Berry get aboard one of the niggers, I fairly gasped. He weighs about 14 stone, but the native did not seem to find him any heavier than I was.
This little place is much the same as all the Island villages. The white houses of the Europeans, surrounded with cocoanut palms, and the squat grass house of the natives, while all the paths are snow white – being made of coral or shells, and are scrupulously clean, no leaves or branches lying about, this being part of the natives' duties in return for being fed.
I got a pleasant surprise here when I found that the Manager of Burns Philp & Co. was a Mr. Gauld, whom I knew in the Sydney Office. He has been here about 5 months, and lives with his wife in a very pretty little bungalow overlooking the beach.
We left Butaritari about 5.30 on Saturday afternoon, and cleared the reef some ½ hour later.
The sea has been fairly calm until today, then, without any warning the wind sprang up to a gale, and it rained in torrents. I don't ever remember seeing such heavy rain. You could not see the ship's length ahead, and in a very few minutes the sea was a mass of foam. It lasted about 2 hours, and then the wind died down, as quickly as it had risen, though it is still raining and a good sea running. This is a miserable ship when it is raining. There is not a dry spot on the deck anywhere, and we have to stay down in our cabins till it is over, which may be not till a couple of days.