butcher let us have his launch and two boys. We crossed the harbor to Gala and went up the river as far as the launch would go. It is a stream only a foot or so wider than the boat and the nigger who was steering had to exercise a good deal of skill in being able to penetrate as far as we did. We climbed up to about a thousand feet of elevation (Hannibal going higher than I) and kept on the lookout for a certain brand of wood pigeon that Beck wrote down to Gizo for. It was a swampy, densely vegetated district that we went through, and often the only way to make any progress at all was to send the niggers on with the guns and half swim, half wade through the bottom of the stream which came down from the waterfalls above. We had no luck as regards the pigeon. We heard several calling in the distance, but it was impossible to locate them or indeed to get to them should we have located them. We managed to assemble all our stuff back at the launch about sundown and commence working downstream for home. It was then that the fun began. The launch ran out of benzine. There was a native village just opposite us on the bank and we paddled over to it. One of our niggers asked one of the villagers for a couple of paddles to washy home with, for we had nothing to propel the launch but the floor boards which we had broken in strips to make rough oars with. The niggers absolutely refused. They also refused to paddle in to Tulagi and bring back some benzine to us. They were Gala niggers and have the worst reputation of all the Solomon Islanders. So we shoved off, got out our floor boards and the four of us, the two niggers, Hannibal and myself, commenced the long pull against the wind in the dark. After a very long time we managed to get to the house of the most northerly Chinaman in Tulagi Bay. The evening, although we arrived in very late, proved to be the most rackety since our stay. Tate, Mack, Cambridge and Us.