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EREPUNU lies on the eastern headland of Hood Lagoon, and contains about 1,500 inhabitants, rising to the importance of a town rather than a village or hamlet. The Mission House is built of lath and plaster, its foundations being blocks of coral. The glebe, about an acre in extent, attached to the Mission is, from its exposed position, unsuited for culture, and only useful for purposes of recreation. A few hundred yards to the east lies the fishing village of old Hula, tenanted by the remnants of a tribe which was numerous and flourishing only a few years back, but the bulk of them abandoned their village owing to tribal wars, and settled about twelve miles further west, the new settlement receiving the same name already mentioned in the previous chapter. The present inhabitants remain on sufferance, being allowed by the Kerepunu men to stay only so long as they supply the large village with fish. Old Plula is built partly on the sea, and partly in a ravine close to the shore. Facing the village are extensive coral reefs, and béche-de-mer is collected in considerable quantities, and bought up by a trader named Dan Rowan, who ekes out a precarious subsistance by drying, smoking, and selling it. During our stay there occurred a collision with the natives,