15th May 1898

Sunday.

At 6am we got up anchor and left in a South Easterly direction passing Guadalcanar Malita & Hura Islands in the later part of the afternoon we entered a beautiful group of Islands called Malapa our purpose for coming here was to see the English trader and find out from him whether everything was Quiet and satisfactory as regards the natives, we cruised in & out of the islands sounding our syren which very much frightened the natives (our syren being a exceptional strong one a regular buzzer) but after a time we managed to entice one of the natives alongside, we then found out that the trader had gone away trading in his schooner, and he did not know when he would return, so our Captain left a letter behind for him, and it getting dusk we made our way out to the open sea.