Long after we left the beach we heard those old
cracked, crabbed voices anathematizing the younger members of that
community. I suppose I was the first white mortal to land on that sacred
shore, and I must have been to them a strange object indeed.
I am fully convinced that this is the Woman's Land, and can easily
account for its being called so by stray canoes from the westward.
After leaving the island, we steamed round to the westward of the small
islands in Amazon Bay, where we intended to spend a quiet Sabbath after a
hard week's work, and previous to beginning another. After anchoring,
canoes with men and boys kept crossing from the mainland, and all day
Sunday it was the same. They halted at the islands, and with the next
tide went on to Toulon. Landing on the Saturday evening to shoot
pigeons, we met several natives, and learned that their plantations were
on the mainland, and that they crossed to plant and fight, taking their
boys with them. Afterwards at Aroma, they told me they left their wives
and daughters at home in charge of a few men, whilst the majority crossed
to the main, and stayed away for some time, returning with food, to spend
a few days at home on the island.
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