so that it was hardly possible to think of man ever building such a thing. Steamer day is a great day in the Solomons. It brings in all the planters for miles and miles around, and they come in their cutters, in their ketches, sloops, yawls, and motor boats to get their six weeks provisions, have a cold glass of beer in the steamer's bar, eat a square meal in the steamer's mess, read their mail, pass the local gossip around, take another drink and depart again. In the bar of the steamer at this time a great clearing house of news takes place, everyone finds out what is happening to every- one else many miles north or south of them, and the gathering is exceptionally merry. Blueie, the bar steward, and Harry, the bartender and the second assistant steward, are the gainers in this situation. The cold beer on the Mataram is the only cold beer this side of Tulagi, two hundred and nineteen miles away. And it seems as though every mother's son who enters the bar saloon is rolling this fact over in his mind, and makes an individual toast to everyone. Most of the bar conversation centered around the news of the massacre at Malaita. It took place on the sixth of October, and in it Mr. Bell, the District Officer, and Mr. Ellys, his assistant, with fourteen of their police boys were murdered. In the fracas it is estimated that twelve of the Malaita bushmen were also killed, making a total of sixteen