On Tuesday the dusk had fallen, the lamp had just been brought, when a

missile struck the table with a rattling smack and rebounded past my

ear. Three inches to one side and this page had never been written; for

the thing travelled like a cannon ball. It was supposed at the time to

be a nut, though even at the time I thought it seemed a small one and

fell strangely.

_Wednesday, July 24_.--The dusk had fallen once more, and the lamp been

just brought out, when the same business was repeated. And again the

missile whistled past my ear. One nut I had been willing to accept; a

second, I rejected utterly. A cocoa-nut does not come slinging along on

a windless evening, making an angle of about fifteen degrees with the

horizon; cocoa-nuts do not fall on successive nights at the same hour

and spot; in both cases, besides, a specific moment seemed to have been

chosen, that when the lamp was just carried out, a specific person

threatened, and that the head of the family. I may have been right or

wrong, but I believed I was the mark of some intimidation; believed the

missile was a stone, aimed not to hit, but to frighten.

No idea makes a man more angry. I ran into the road, where the natives

were as usual promenading in the dark; Maka joined me with a lantern;

and I ran from one to another, glared in quite innocent faces, put

useless questions, and proffered idle threats. Thence I carried my wrath

(which was worthy the son of any queen in history) to the Ricks. They

heard me with depression, assured me this trick of throwing a stone into

a family dinner was not new; that it meant mischief, and was of a piece

with the alarming disposition of the natives. And then the truth, so

long concealed from us, came out. The king had broken his promise, he

had defied the deputation; the tapu was still dormant, "The Land we Live

in" still selling drink, and that quarter of the town disturbed and

menaced by perpetual broils. But there was worse ahead: a feast was now

preparing for the birthday of the little princess; and the tributary

chiefs of Kuma and Little Makin were expected daily. Strong in a

following of numerous and somewhat savage clansmen, each of these was

believed, like a Douglas of old, to be of doubtful loyalty. Kuma (a

little pot-bellied fellow) never visited the palace, never entered the

town, but sat on the beach on a mat, his gun across his knees, parading

his mistrust and scorn; Karaiti of Makin, although he was more bold, was

not supposed to be more friendly; and not only were these vassals

jealous of the throne, but the followers on either side shared in the

animosity. Brawls had already taken place; blows had passed which might

at any moment be repaid in blood. Some of the strangers were already

here and already drinking; if the debauch continued after the bulk of

them had come, a collision, perhaps a revolution, was to be expected.

The sale of drink is in this group a measure of the jealousy of traders;

one begins, the others are constrained to follow; and to him who has the

most gin, and sells it the most recklessly, the lion's share of copra is

assured. It is felt by all to be an extreme expedient, neither safe,

decent, nor dignified. A trader on Tarawa, heated by an eager rivalry,

brought many cases of gin. He told me he sat afterwards day and night

in his house till it was finished, not daring to arrest the sale, not

venturing to go forth, the bush all round him filled with howling

drunkards. At night, above all, when he was afraid to sleep, and heard

shots and voices about him in the darkness, his remorse was black.

"My God!" he reflected, "if I was to lose my life on such a wretched

business!" Often and often, in the story of the Gilberts, this scene has

been repeated; and the remorseful trader sat beside his lamp, longing

for the day, listening with agony for the sound of murder, registering

resolutions for the future. For the business is easy to begin, but

hazardous to stop. The natives are in their way a just and law-abiding

people, mindful of their debts, docile to the voice of their own

institutions; when the tapu is re-enforced they will cease drinking; but

the white who seeks to antedate the movement by refusing liquor does so

at his peril.

Hence, in some degree, the anxiety and helplessness of Mr. Rick. He and

Tom, alarmed by the rabblement of the "Sans Souci," had stopped the

sale; they had done so without danger, because "The Land we Live in"

still continued selling; it was claimed, besides, that they had been the

first to begin. What step could be taken? Could Mr. Rick visit Mr.

Muller (with whom he was not on terms) and address him thus: "I was

getting ahead of you, now you are getting ahead of me, and I ask you to

forgo your profit. I got my place closed in safety, thanks to your

continuing; but now I think you have continued long enough. I begin to

be alarmed; and because I am afraid I ask you to confront a certain

danger"? It was not to be thought of. Something else had to be found;

and there was one person at one end of the town who was at least not

interested in copra. There was little else to be said in favour of

myself as an ambassador. I had arrived in the Wightman schooner, I was

living in the Wightman compound, I was the daily associate of the

Wightman coterie. It was egregious enough that I should now intrude

unasked in the private affairs of Crawford's agent, and press upon him

the sacrifice of his interests and the venture of his life. But bad as I

might be, there was none better; since the affair of the stone I was,

besides, sharp-set to be doing, the idea of a delicate interview

attracted me, and I thought it policy to show myself abroad.

The night was very dark. There was service in the church, and the

building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa'. I

saw few other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many people stirring

in the darkness, and a hum and sputter of low talk that sounded

stealthy. I believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my

shoulder as I went. Muller's was but partly lighted, and quite silent,

and the gate was fastened. I could by no means manage to undo the latch.

No wonder, since I found it afterwards to be four or five feet long--a

fortification in itself. As I still fumbled, a dog came on the inside

and snuffed suspiciously at my hands, so that I was reduced to calling

"House ahoy!" Mr. Muller came down and put his chin across the paling in

the dark. "Who is that?" said he, like one who has no mind to welcome

strangers.

"My name is Stevenson," said I.

"O, Mr. Stevens! I didn't know you. Come inside."

We stepped into the dark store, when I leaned upon the counter and he

against the wall. All the light came from the sleeping-room, where I saw

his family being put to bed; it struck full in my face, but Mr. Muller

stood in shadow. No doubt he expected what was coming, and sought the

advantage of position; but for a man who wished to persuade and had

nothing to conceal, mine was the preferable.

"Look here," I began, "I hear you are selling to the natives."

"Others have done that before me," he returned pointedly.

"No doubt," said I, "and I have nothing to do with the past, but the

future. I want you to promise you will handle these spirits carefully."

"Now what is your motive in this?" he asked, and then, with a sneer,

"Are you afraid of your life?"

"That is nothing to the purpose," I replied. "I know, and you know,

these spirits ought not to be used at all."

"Tom and Mr. Rick have sold them before."

"I have nothing to do with Tom and Mr. Rick. All I know is I have heard

them both refuse."

"No, I suppose you have nothing to do with them. Then you are just

afraid of your life."

"Come now," I cried, being perhaps a little stung, "you know in your

heart I am asking a reasonable thing. I don't ask you to lose your

profit--though I would prefer to see no spirits brought here, as you

would----"

"I don't say I wouldn't. I didn't begin this," he interjected.

"No, I don't suppose you did," said I. "And I don't ask you to lose; I

ask you to give me your word, man to man, that you will make no native

drunk."

Up to now Mr. Muller had maintained an attitude very trying to my

temper; but he had maintained it with difficulty, his sentiment being

all upon my side; and here he changed ground for the worse. "It isn't me

that sells," said he.

"No, it's that nigger," I agreed. "But he's yours to buy and sell; you

have your hand on the nape of his neck; and I ask you--I have my wife

here--to use the authority you have."

He hastily returned to his old word. "I don't deny I could if I wanted,"

said he. "But there's no danger, the natives are all quiet. You're just

afraid of your life."

I do not like to be called a coward, even by implication; and here I

lost my temper and propounded an untimely ultimatum. "You had better put

it plain," I cried. "Do you mean to refuse me what I ask?"

"I don't want either to refuse it or grant it," he replied.

"You'll find you have to do the one thing or the other, and right now!"

I cried, and then, striking into a happier vein, "Come," said I, "you're

a better sort than that. I see what's wrong with you--you think I came

from the opposite camp. I see the sort of man you are, and you know that

what I ask is right."

Again he changed ground. "If the natives get any drink, it isn't safe to

stop them," he objected.

"I'll be answerable for the bar," I said. "We are three men and four

revolvers; we'll come at a word, and hold the place against the

village."

"You don't know what you're talking about; it's too dangerous!" he

cried.

"Look here," said I, "I don't mind much about losing that life you talk

so much of; but I mean to lose it the way I want to, and that is,

putting a stop to all this beastliness."

He talked a while about his duty to the firm; I minded not at all, I was

secure of victory. He was but waiting to capitulate, and looked about

for any potent to relieve the strain. In the gush of light from the

bedroom door I spied a cigar-holder on the desk. "That is well

coloured," said I.

"Will you take a cigar?" said he.

I took it and held it up unlighted. "Now," said I, "you promise me."

"I promise you you won't have any trouble from natives that have drunk

at my place," he replied.

"That is all I ask," said I, and showed it was not by immediately

offering to try his stock.

So far as it was anyway critical our interview here ended. Mr. Muller

had thenceforth ceased to regard me as an emissary from his rivals,

dropped his defensive attitude, and spoke as he believed. I could make

out that he would already, had he dared, have stopped the sale himself.

Not quite daring, it may be imagined how he resented the idea of

interference from those who had (by his own statement) first led him on,

then deserted him in the breach, and now (sitting themselves in safety)

egged him on to a new peril, which was all gain to them, all loss to

him. I asked him what he thought of the danger from the feast.

"I think worse of it than any of you," he answered. "They were shooting

around here last night, and I heard the balls too. I said to myself,

'That's bad.' What gets me is why you should be making this row up at

your end. I should be the first to go."

It was a thoughtless wonder. The consolation of being second is not

great: the fact, not the order of going--there was our concern.

Scott talks moderately of looking forward to a time of fighting "with a

feeling that resembled pleasure." The resemblance seems rather an

identity. In modern life, contact is ended; man grows impatient of

endless manoeuvres; and to approach the fact, to find ourselves where

we can push our advantage home, and stand a fair risk, and see at last

what we are made of, stirs the blood. It was so at least with all my

family, who bubbled with delight at the approach of trouble; and we sat

deep into the night like a pack of schoolboys, preparing the revolvers

and arranging plans against the morrow. It promised certainly to be a

busy and eventful day. The Old Men were to be summoned to confront me on

the question of the tapu; Muller might call us at any moment to garrison

his bar; and suppose Muller to fail, we decided in a family council to

take that matter into our own hands, "The Land we Live in" at the

pistol's mouth, and, with the polysyllabic Williams, dance to a new

tune. As I recall our humour I think it would have gone hard with the

mulatto.

_Wednesday, July 24_.--It was as well, and yet it was disappointing that

these thunder-clouds rolled off in silence. Whether the Old Men recoiled

from an interview with Queen Victoria's son, whether Muller had secretly

intervened, or whether the step flowed naturally from the fears of the

king and the nearness of the feast, the tapu was early that morning

re-enforced; not a day too soon, from the manner the boats began to

arrive thickly, and the town was filled with the big rowdy vassals of

Karaiti.

The effect lingered for some time on the minds of the traders; it was

with the approval of all present that I helped to draw up a petition to

the United States, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the

Gilberts; and it was at this request that I added, under my own name, a

brief testimony of what had passed;--useless pains, since the whole

repose, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a pigeon-hole at

Washington.

_Sunday, July 28_.--This day we had the afterpiece of the debauch. The

king and queen, in European clothes, and followed by armed guards,

attended church for the first time, and sat perched aloft in a

precarious dignity under the barrel-hoops. Before sermon his majesty

clambered from the dais, stood lopsidedly upon the gravel floor, and in

a few words abjured drinking. The queen followed suit with a yet briefer

allocution. All the men in church were next addressed in turn; each held

up his right hand, and the affair was over--throne and church were

reconciled.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIVE DAYS' FESTIVAL

_Thursday, July 25_.--The street was this day much enlivened by the

presence of the men from Little Makin; they average taller than

Butaritarians, and, being on a holiday, went wreathed with yellow leaves

and gorgeous in vivid colours. They are said to be more savage, and to

be proud of the distinction. Indeed, it seemed to us they swaggered in

the town, like plaided Highlanders upon the streets of Inverness,

conscious of barbaric virtues.

In the afternoon the summer parlour was observed to be packed with

people; others standing outside and stooping to peer under the eaves,

like children at home about a circus. It was the Makin company,

rehearsing for the day of competition. Karaiti sat in the front row

close to the singers, where we were summoned (I suppose in honour of

Queen Victoria) to join him. A strong breathless heat reigned under the

iron roof, and the air was heavy with the scent of wreaths. The singers,

with fine mats about their loins, cocoa-nut feathers set in rings upon

their fingers, and their heads crowned with yellow leaves, sat on the

floor by companies. A varying number of soloists stood up for different

songs; and these bore the chief part in the music. But the full force of

the companies, even when not singing, contributed continuously to the

effect, and marked the ictus of the measure, mimicking, grimacing,

casting up their heads and eyes, fluttering the feathers on their

fingers, clapping hands, or beating (loud as a kettledrum) on the left

breast; the time was exquisite, the music barbarous, but full of

conscious art. I noted some devices constantly employed. A sudden

change would be introduced (I think of key) with no break of the

measure, but emphasised by a sudden heightening of the voice and a

swinging, general gesticulation. The voices of the soloists would begin

far apart in a rude discord, and gradually draw together to a unison;

which, when they had reached, they were joined and drowned by the full

chorus. The ordinary, hurried, barking, unmelodious movement of the

voices would at times be broken and glorified by a psalm-like strain of

melody, often well constructed, or seeming so by contrast. There was

much variety of measure, and towards the end of each piece, when the fun

became fast and furious, a recourse to this figure--

[Illustration]

It is difficult to conceive what fire and devilry they get into these

hammering finales; all go together, voices, hands, eyes, leaves, and

fluttering finger-rings; the chorus swings to the eye, the song throbs

on the ear; the faces are convulsed with enthusiasm and effort.

Presently the troop stood up in a body, the drums forming a half-circle

for the soloists, who were sometimes five or even more in number. The

songs that followed were highly dramatic; though I had none to give me

any explanation, I would at times make out some shadowy but decisive

outline of a plot; and I was continually reminded of certain quarrelsome

concerted scenes in grand operas at home; just so the single voices

issue from and fall again into the general volume; just so do the

performers separate and crowd together, brandish the raised hand, and

roll the eye to heaven--or the gallery. Already this is beyond the

Thespian model; the art of this people is already past the embryo; song,

dance, drums, quartette and solo--it is the drama full developed

although still in miniature. Of all so-called dancing in the South Seas,

that which I saw in Butaritari stands easily the first. The _hula_, as

it may be viewed by the speedy globe-trotter in Honolulu, is surely the

most dull of man's inventions, and the spectator yawns under its length

as at a college lecture or a parliamentary debate. But the Gilbert

Island dance leads on the mind; it thrills, rouses, subjugates; it has

the essence of all art, an unexplored imminent significance. Where so

many are engaged, and where all must make (at a given moment) the same

swift, elaborate, and often arbitrary movement, the toil of rehearsal is

of course extreme. But they begin as children. A child and a man may

often be seen together in a maniap'; the man sings and gesticulates, the

child stands before him with streaming tears and tremulously copies him

in act and sound; it is the Gilbert Island artist learning (as all

artists must) his art in sorrow.

I may seem to praise too much; here is a passage from my wife's diary,

which proves that I was not alone in being moved, and completes the

picture:--"The conductor gave the cue, and all the dancers, waving their

arms, swaying their bodies, and clapping their breasts in perfect time,

opened with an introductory. The performers remained seated, except two,

and once three, and twice a single soloist. These stood in the group,

making a slight movement with the feet and rhythmical quiver of the body

as they sang. There was a pause after the introductory, and then the

real business of the opera--for it was no less--began; an opera where

every singer was an accomplished actor. The leading man, in an

impassioned ecstasy which possessed him from head to foot, seemed

transfigured; once it was as though a strong wind had swept over the

stage--their arms, their feathered fingers thrilling with an emotion

that shook my nerves as well: heads and bodies followed like a field of

grain before a gust. My blood came hot and cold, tears pricked my eyes,

my head whirled, I felt an almost irresistible impulse to join the

dancers. One drama, I think, I very nearly understood. A fierce and

savage old man took the solo part. He sang of the birth of a prince,

and how he was tenderly rocked in his mother's arms; of his boyhood,

when he excelled his fellows in swimming, climbing, and all athletic

sports; of his youth, when he went out to sea in his boat and fished; of

his manhood, when he married a wife who cradled a son of his own in her

arms. Then came the alarm of war, and a great battle, of which for a

time the issue was doubtful; but the hero conquered, as he always does,

and with a tremendous burst of the victors the piece closed. There were

also comic pieces, which caused great amusement. During one, an old man

behind me clutched me by the arm, shook his finger in my face with a

roguish smile, and said something with a chuckle, which I took to be the

equivalent of 'O, you women, you women; it is true of you all!' I fear

it was not complimentary. At no time was there the least sign of the

ugly indecency of the eastern islands. All was poetry pure and simple.

The music itself was as complex as our own, though constructed on an

entirely different basis; once or twice I was startled by a bit of

something very like the best English sacred music, but it was only for

an instant. At last there was a longer pause, and this time the dancers

were all on their feet. As the drama went on the interest grew. The

performers appealed to each other, to the audience, to the heaven above;

they took counsel with each other, the conspirators drew together in a

knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the

tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be--except that the

voices were all of the same calibre. A woman once sang from the back row

with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially

nasal; I notice all the women affect that unpleasantness. At one time a

boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another a child of six or

eight, doubtless an infant phenomenon being trained, was placed in the

centre. The little fellow was desperately frightened and embarrassed at

first, but towards the close warmed up to his work and showed much

dramatic talent. The changing expressions on the faces of the dancers

were so speaking that it seemed a great stupidity not to understand

them."

Our neighbour at this performance, Karaiti, somewhat favours his

Butaritarian majesty in shape and feature, being like him portly,

bearded, and Oriental. In character he seems the reverse: alert,

smiling, jovial, jocular, industrious. At home in his own island, he

labours himself like a slave, and makes his people labour like a

slave-driver. He takes an interest in ideas. George the trader told him

about flying-machines. "Is that true, George?" he asked. "It is in the

papers," replied George. "Well," said Karaiti, "if that man can do it

with machinery, I can do it without"; and he designed and made a pair of

wings, strapped them on his shoulders, went to the end of a pier,

launched himself into space, and fell bulkily into the sea. His wives

fished him out, for his wings hindered him in swimming. "George," said

he, pausing as he went up to change, "George, you lie." He had eight

wives, for his small realm still follows ancient customs; but he showed

embarrassment when this was mentioned to my wife. "Tell her I have only

brought one here," he said anxiously. Altogether the Black Douglas

pleased us much; and as we heard fresh details of the king's uneasiness,

and saw for ourselves that all the weapons in the summer parlour had

been hid, we watched with the more admiration the cause of all this

anxiety rolling on his big legs, with his big smiling face, apparently

unarmed, and certainly unattended, through the hostile town. The Red

Douglas, pot-bellied Kuma, having perhaps heard word of the debauch,

remained upon his fief; his vassals thus came uncommanded to the feast,

and swelled the following of Karaiti.

_Friday, July 26_.--At night in the dark, the singers of Makin paraded

in the road before our house and sang the song of the princess. "This is

the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunave was born to-day--a beautiful

princess, Queen of Butaritari." So I was told it went in endless

iteration. The song was of course out of season, and the performance

only a rehearsal. But it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to

ourselves from our new friend, Karaiti.

_Saturday, July 27_.--We had announced a performance of the magic

lantern to-night in church; and this brought the king to visit us. In

honour of the Black Douglas (I suppose) his usual two guardsmen were now

increased to four; and the squad made an outlandish figure as they

straggled after him, in straw hats, kilts and jackets. Three carried

their arms reversed, the butts over their shoulders, the muzzles

menacing the king's plump back; the fourth had passed his weapon behind

his neck, and held it there with arms extended like a backboard. The

visit was extraordinarily long. The king, no longer galvanised with gin,

said and did nothing. He sat collapsed in a chair and let a cigar go

out. It was hot, it was sleepy, it was cruel dull; there was no resource

but to spy in the countenance of Tebureimoa for some remaining trait of

_Mr. Corpse_ the butcher. His hawk nose, crudely depressed and flattened

at the point, did truly seem to us to smell of midnight murder. When he

took his leave, Maka bade me observe him going down the stair (or rather

ladder) from the verandah. "Old man," said Maka. "Yes," said I, "and yet

I suppose not old man." "Young man," returned Maka, "perhaps fo'ty." And

I have heard since he is most likely younger.

While the magic lantern was showing, I skulked without in the dark. The

voice of Maka, excitedly explaining the Scripture slides, seemed to fill

not the church only, but the neighbourhood. All else was silent.

Presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a

procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and

women striking in my face delightfully. At the corner, arrested by the

voice of Maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they

paused. They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. They were Makin

people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the

missionary and his works. Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their

company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; next moment three

had followed him; the next it was a covey of near upon a score, all

pelting for their lives. So the little band of the heathen paused

irresolute at the corner, and melted before the attractions of a magic

lantern, like a glacier in spring. The more staunch vainly taunted the

deserters; three fled in a guilty silence, but still fled; and when at

length the leader found the wit or the authority to get his troop in

motion and revive the singing, it was with much diminished forces that

they passed musically on up the dark road.

Meanwhile inside the luminous pictures brightened and faded. I stood for

some while unobserved in the rear of the spectators, when I could hear

just in front of me a pair of lovers following the show with interest,

the male playing the part of interpreter and (like Adam) mingling

caresses with his lecture. The wild animals, a tiger in particular, and

that old school-treat favourite, the sleeper and the mouse, were hailed

with joy; but the chief marvel and delight was in the gospel series.

Maka, in the opinion of his aggrieved wife, did not properly rise to the

occasion. "What is the matter with the man? Why can't he talk?" she

cried. The matter with the man, I think, was the greatness of the

opportunity; he reeled under his good fortune; and whether he did ill or

well, the exposure of these pious "phantoms" did as a matter of fact

silence in all that part of the island the voice of the scoffer. "Why

then," the word went round, "why then, the Bible is true!" And on our

return afterwards we were told the impression was yet lively, and those

who had seen might be heard telling those who had not, "O yes, it is all

true; these things all happened, we have seen the pictures." The

argument is not so childish as it seems; for I doubt if these islanders

are acquainted with any other mode of representation but photography; so

that the picture of an event (on the old melodrama principle that "the

camera cannot lie, Joseph"), would appear strong proof of its

occurrence. The fact amused us the more because our slides were some of

them ludicrously silly, and one (Christ before Pilate) was received with

shouts of merriment, in which even Maka was constrained to join.

_Sunday, July 28_.--Karaiti came to ask for a repetition of the

"phantoms"--this was the accepted word--and, having received a promise,

turned and left my humble roof without the shadow of a salutation. I

felt it impolite to have the least appearance of pocketing a slight; the

times had been too difficult, and were still too doubtful; and Queen

Victoria's son was bound to maintain the honour of his house. Karaiti

was accordingly summoned that evening to the Ricks, where Mrs. Rick fell

foul of him in words, and Queen Victoria's son assailed him with

indignant looks. I was the ass with the lion's skin; I could not roar in

the language of the Gilbert Islands; but I could stare. Karaiti declared

he had meant no offence; apologised in a sound, hearty, gentlemanly

manner; and became at once at his ease. He had in a dagger to examine,

and announced he would come to price it on the morrow, to-day being

Sunday; this nicety in a heathen with eight wives surprised me. The

dagger was "good for killing fish," he said roguishly; and was supposed

to have his eye upon fish upon two legs. It is at least odd that in

Eastern Polynesia fish was the accepted euphemism for the human

sacrifice. Asked as to the population of his island, Karaiti called out

to his vassals who sat waiting him outside the door, and they put it at

four hundred and fifty; but (added Karaiti jovially) there will soon be

plenty more, for all the women are in the family way. Long before we

separated I had quite forgotten his offence. He, however, still bore it

in mind; and with a very courteous inspiration returned early on the

next day, paid us a long visit, and punctiliously said farewell when he

departed.

_Monday, July 29_.--The great day came round at last. In the first hours

the night was startled by the sound of clapping hands and the chant of

Nei Kamaunava; its melancholy, slow, and somewhat menacing measures

broken at intervals by a formidable shout. The little morsel of humanity

thus celebrated in the dark hours was observed at midday playing on the

green entirely naked, and equally unobserved and unconcerned.

The summer parlour on its artificial islet, relieved against the

shimmering lagoon, and shimmering itself with sun and tinned iron, was

all day crowded about by eager men and women. Within, it was boxed full

of islanders, of any age and size, and in every degree of nudity and

finery. So close we squatted, that at one time I had a mighty handsome

woman on my knees, two little naked urchins having their feet against my

back. There might be a dame in full attire of _holoku_ and hat and

flowers; and her next neighbour might the next moment strip some little

rag of a shift from her fat shoulders and come out a monument of flesh,

painted rather than covered by the hairbreadth _ridi_. Little ladies who

thought themselves too great to appear undraped upon so high a festival

were seen to pause outside in the broad sunshine, their miniature

_ridis_ in their hand; a moment more and they were full-dressed and

entered the concert-room.

At either end stood up to sing, or sat down to rest, the alternate

companies of singers; Kuma and Little Makin on the north, Butaritari and

its conjunct hamlets to the south; both groups conspicuous in barbaric

bravery. In the midst, between these rival camps of troubadours, a bench

was placed; and here the king and queen throned it, some two or three

feet above the crowded audience on the floor--Tebureimoa as usual in his

striped pyjamas with a satchel strapped across one shoulder, doubtless

(in the island fashion) to contain his pistols; the queen in a purple

_holoku_, her abundant hair let down, a fan in her hand. The bench was

turned facing to the strangers, a piece of well-considered civility; and

when it was the turn of Butaritari to sing, the pair must twist round on

the bench, lean their elbows on the rail, and turn to us the spectacle

of their broad backs. The royal couple occasionally solaced themselves

with a clay pipe; and the pomp of state was further heightened by the

rifles of a picket of the guard.

With this kingly countenance, and ourselves squatted on the ground, we

heard several songs from one side or the other. Then royalty and its

guards withdrew, and Queen Victoria's son and daughter-in-law were

summoned by acclamation to the vacant throne. Our pride was perhaps a

little modified when we were joined on our high places by a certain

thriftless loafer of a white; and yet I was glad too, for the man had a

smattering of native, and could give me some idea of the subject of the

songs. One was patriotic, and dared Tembinok' of Apemama, the terror of

the group, to an invasion. One mixed the planting of taro and the

harvest-home. Some were historical, and commemorated kings and the

illustrious chances of their time, such as a bout of drinking or a war.

One, at least, was a drama of domestic interest, excellently played by

the troop from Makin. It told the story of a man who has lost his wife,

at first bewails her loss, then seeks another: the earlier strains (or

acts) are played exclusively by men; but towards the end a woman

appears, who has just lost her husband; and I suppose the pair console

each other, for the finale seemed of happy omen. Of some of the songs my

informant told me briefly they were "like about the _weemen_"; this I

could have guessed myself. Each side (I should have said) was

strengthened by one or two women. They were all soloists, did not very

often join in the performance, but stood disengaged at the back part of

the stage, and looked (in _ridi_, necklace, and dressed hair) for all

the world like European ballet-dancers. When the song was anyway broad

these ladies came particularly to the front; and it was singular to see

that, after each entry, the _premiere danseuse_ pretended to be overcome

by shame, as though led on beyond what she had meant, and her male

assistants made a feint of driving her away like one who had disgraced

herself. Similar affectations accompany certain truly obscene dances of

Samoa, where they are very well in place. Here it was different. The

words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world, were gross enough to make a

carter blush; and the most suggestive feature was this feint of shame.

For such parts the women showed some disposition; they were pert, they

were neat, they were acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and

some of them were pretty. But this is not the artist's field; there is

the whole width of heaven between such capering and ogling, and the

strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, frenzied faces with

which the best of the male dancers held us spellbound through a Gilbert

Island ballet.

Almost from the first it was apparent that the people of the city were

defeated. I might have thought them even good, only I had the other

troop before my eyes to correct my standard, and remind me continually

of "the little more, and how much it is." Perceiving themselves worsted,

the choir of Butaritari grew confused, blundered, and broke down; amid

this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals I should not myself have recognised

the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. To crown

all, the Makin company began a dance of truly superlative merit. I know

not what it was about, I was too much absorbed to ask. In one act a part

of the chorus, squealing in some strange falsetto, produced very much

the effect of our orchestra; in another, the dancers, leaping like

jumping-jacks, with arms extended, passed through and through each

other's ranks with extraordinary speed, neatness, and humour. A more

laughable effect I never saw; in any European theatre it would have

brought the house down, and the island audience roared with laughter and

applause. This filled up the measure for the rival company, and they

forgot themselves and decency. After each act or figure of the ballet,

the performers pause a moment standing, and the next is introduced by

the clapping of hands in triplets. Not until the end of the whole ballet

do they sit down, which is the signal for the rivals to stand up. But

now all rules were to be broken. During the interval following on this

great applause, the company of Butaritari leaped suddenly to their feet

and most unhandsomely began a performance of their own. It was strange

to see the men of Makin staring; I have seen a tenor in Europe stare

with the same blank dignity into a hissing theatre; but presently, to my

surprise, they sobered down, gave up the unsung remainder of their

ballet, resumed their seats, and suffered their ungallant adversaries to

go on and finish. Nothing would suffice. Again, at the first interval,

Butaritari unhandsomely cut in; Makin, irritated in turn, followed the

example; and the two companies of dancers remained permanently standing,

continuously clapping hands, and regularly cutting across each other at

each pause. I expected blows to begin with any moment; and our position

in the midst was highly unstrategical. But the Makin people had a better

thought; and upon a fresh interruption turned and trooped out of the

house. We followed them, first because these were the artists, second

because they were guests and had been scurvily ill-used. A large

population of our neighbours did the same, so that the causeway was

filled from end to end by the procession of deserters; and the

Butaritari choir was left to sing for its own pleasure in an empty

house, having gained the point and lost the audience. It was surely

fortunate that there was no one drunk; but, drunk or sober, where else

would a scene so irritating have concluded without blows?

The last stage and glory of this auspicious day was of our own

providing--the second and positively the last appearance of the

phantoms. All round the church, groups sat outside, in the night, where

they could see nothing; perhaps ashamed to enter, certainly finding some

shadowy pleasure in the mere proximity. Within, about one-half of the

great shed was densely packed with people. In the midst, on the royal

dais, the lantern luminously smoked; chance rays of light struck out the

earnest countenance of our Chinaman grinding the hand-organ; a fainter

glimmer showed off the rafters and their shadows in the hollow of the

roof; the pictures shone and vanished on the screen; and as each

appeared, there would run a hush, a whisper, a strong shuddering rustle,

and a chorus of small cries among the crowd. There sat by me the mate of

a wrecked schooner. "They would think this a strange sight in Europe or

the States," said he, "going on in a building like this, all tied with

bits of string."

CHAPTER VII

HUSBAND AND WIFE

The trader accustomed to the manners of Eastern Polynesia has a lesson

to learn among the Gilberts. The _ridi_ is but a spare attire; as late

as thirty years back the women went naked until marriage; within ten

years the custom lingered; and these facts, above all when heard in

description, conveyed a very false idea of the manners of the group. A

very intelligent missionary described it (in its former state) as a

"Paradise of naked women" for the resident whites. It was at least a

platonic Paradise, where Lothario ventured at his peril. Since 1860,

fourteen whites have perished on a single island, all for the same

cause, all found where they had no business, and speared by some

indignant father of a family; the figure was given me by one of their

contemporaries who had been more prudent and survived. The strange

persistence of these fourteen martyrs might seem to point to monomania

or a series of romantic passions; gin is the more likely key. The poor

buzzards sat alone in their houses by an open case; they drank; their

brain was fired; they stumbled towards the nearest houses on chance; and

the dart went through their liver. In place of a Paradise the trader

found an archipelago of fierce husbands and of virtuous women. "Of

course if you wish to make love to them, it's the same as anywhere

else," observed a trader innocently; but he and his companions rarely so

choose.

The trader must be credited with a virtue: he often makes a kind and

loyal husband. Some of the worst beachcombers in the Pacific, some of

the last of the old school, have fallen in my path, and some of them

were admirable to their native wives, and one made a despairing widower.

The position of a trader's wife in the Gilberts is, besides, unusually

enviable. She shares the immunities of her husband. Curfew in Butaritari

sounds for her in vain. Long after the bell is rung and the great island

ladies are confined for the night to their own roof, this chartered

libertine may scamper and giggle through the deserted streets or go down

to bathe in the dark. The resources of the store are at her hand; she

goes arrayed like a queen, and feasts delicately every day upon tinned

meats. And she who was perhaps of no regard or station among natives

sits with captains, and is entertained on board of schooners. Five of

these privileged dames were some time our neighbours. Four were handsome

skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and like children liable to

fits of pouting. They wore dresses by day, but there was a tendency

after dark to strip these lendings and to career and squall about the

compound in the aboriginal _ridi_. Games of cards were continually

played, with shells for counters; their course was much marred by

cheating; and the end of a round (above all if a man was of the party)

resolved itself into a scrimmage for the counters. The fifth was a

matron. It was a picture to see her sail to church on a Sunday, a

parasol in hand, a nursemaid following, and the baby buried in a trade

hat and armed with a patent feeding-bottle. The service was enlivened by

her continual supervision and correction of the maid. It was impossible

not to fancy the baby was a doll, and the church some European playroom.

All these women were legitimately married. It is true that the

certificate of one, when she proudly showed it, proved to run thus, that

she was "married for one night," and her gracious partner was at liberty

to "send her to hell" the next morning; but she was none the wiser or

the worse for the dastardly trick. Another, I heard, was married on a

work of mine in a pirated edition; it answered the purpose as well as a

Hall Bible. Notwithstanding all these allurements of social

distinction, rare food and raiment, a comparative vacation from toil,

and legitimate marriage contracted on a pirated edition, the trader must

sometimes seek long before he can be mated. While I was in the group one

had been eight months on the quest, and he was still a bachelor.

Within strictly native society the old laws and practices were harsh,

but not without a certain stamp of high-mindedness. Stealthy adultery

was punished with death; open elopement was properly considered virtue

in comparison, and compounded for a fine in land. The male adulterer

alone seems to have been punished. It is correct manners for a jealous

man to hang himself; a jealous woman has a different remedy--she bites

her rival. Ten or twenty years ago it was a capital offence to raise a

woman's _ridi_; to this day it is still punished with a heavy fine; and

the garment itself is still symbolically sacred. Suppose a piece of land

to be disputed in Butaritari, the claimant who shall first hang a _ridi_

on the tapu-post has gained his cause, since no one can remove or touch

it but himself.

The _ridi_ was the badge not of the woman but the wife, the mark not of

her sex but of her station. It was the collar on the slave's neck, the

brand on merchandise. The adulterous woman seems to have been spared;

were the husband offended, it would be a poor consolation to send his

draught cattle to the shambles. Karaiti, to this day, calls his eight

wives "his horses," some trader having explained to him the employment

of these animals on farms; and Nanteitei hired out his wives to do

mason-work. Husbands, at least when of high rank, had the power of life

and death; even whites seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when

they had transgressed beyond forgiveness, made haste to pronounce the

formula of deprecation--_I Kana Kim_. This form of words had so much

virtue that a condemned criminal, repeating it on a particular day to

the king who had condemned him, must be instantly released. It is an

offer of abasement, and, strangely enough, the reverse--the

imitation--is a common vulgar insult in Great Britain to this day. I

give a scene between a trader and his Gilbert Island wife, as it was

told me by the husband, now one of the oldest residents, but then a

freshman in the group.

"Go and light a fire," said the trader, "and when I have brought this

oil I will cook some fish."

The woman grunted at him, island fashion.

"I am not a pig that you should grunt at me," said he.

"I know you are not a pig," said the woman, "neither am I your slave."

"To be sure you are not my slave, and if you do not care to stop with

me, you had better go home to your people," said he. "But in the

meantime go and light the fire; and when I have brought this oil I will

cook some fish."

She went as if to obey; and presently when the trader looked she had

built a fire so big that the cook-house was catching in flames.

"_I Kana Kim!_" she cried, as she saw him coming; but he recked not, and

hit her with a cooking-pot. The leg pierced her skull, blood spouted, it

was thought she was a dead woman, and the natives surrounded the house

in a menacing expectation. Another white was present, a man of older

experience. "You will have us both killed if you go on like this," he

cried. "She had said, _I Kana Kim_!" If she had not said _I Kana Kim_ he

might have struck her with a caldron. It was not the blow that made the

crime, but the disregard of an accepted formula.

Polygamy, the particular sacredness of wives, their semi-servile state,

their seclusion in kings' harems, even their privilege of biting, all

would seem to indicate a Mohammedan society and the opinion of the

soullessness of woman. And not so in the least. It is a mere appearance.

After you have studied these extremes in one house, you may go to the

next and find all reversed, the woman the mistress, the man only the

first of her thralls. The authority is not with the husband as such, nor

the wife as such. It resides in the chief or the chief-woman; in him or

her who has inherited the lands of the clan, and stands to the clansman

in the place of parent, exacting their service, answerable for their

fines. There is but the one source of power and the one ground of

dignity--rank. The king married a chief-woman; she became his menial,

and must work with her hands on Messrs. Wightman's pier. The king

divorced her; she regained at once her former state and power. She

married the Hawaiian sailor, and behold the man is her flunkey and can

be shown the door at pleasure. Nay, and such low-born lords are even

corrected physically, and, like grown but dutiful children, must endure

the discipline.

We were intimate in one such household, that of Nei Takauti and Nan

Tok'; I put the lady first of necessity. During one week of fool's

paradise, Mrs. Stevenson had gone alone to the sea-side of the island

after shells. I am very sure the proceeding was unsafe; and she soon

perceived a man and woman watching her. Do what she would, her guardians

held her steadily in view; and when the afternoon began to fall, and

they thought she had stayed long enough, took her in charge, and by

signs and broken English ordered her home. On the way the lady drew from

her earring-hole a clay pipe, the husband lighted it, and it was handed

to my unfortunate wife, who knew not how to refuse the incommodious

favour; and when they were all come to our house, the pair sat down

beside her on the floor, and improved the occasion with prayer. From

that day they were our family friends; bringing thrice a day the

beautiful island garlands of white flowers, visiting us any evening, and

frequently carrying us down to their own maniap' in return, the woman

leading Mrs. Stevenson by the hand like one child with another.

Nan Tok', the husband, was young, extremely handsome, of the most

approved good humour, and suffering in his precarious station from

suppressed high spirits. Nei Takauti, the wife, was getting old; her

grown son by a former marriage had just hanged himself before his

mother's eyes in despair at a well-merited rebuke. Perhaps she had never

been beautiful, but her face was full of character, her eye of sombre

fire. She was a high chief-woman, but by a strange exception for a

person of her rank, was small, spare and sinewy, with lean small hands

and corded neck. Her full dress of an evening was invariably a white

chemise--and for adornment, green leaves (or sometimes white blossoms)

stuck in her hair and thrust through her huge earring-holes. The husband

on the contrary changed to view like a kaleidoscope. Whatever pretty

thing my wife might have given to Nei Takauti--a string of beads, a

ribbon, a piece of bright fabric--appeared the next evening on the

person of Nan Tok'. It was plain he was a clothes-horse; that he wore

livery; that, in a word, he was his wife's wife. They reversed the

parts, indeed, down to the least particular; it was the husband who

showed himself the ministering angel in the hour of pain, while the wife

displayed the apathy and heartlessness of the proverbial man.

When Nei Takauti had a headache Nan Tok' was full of attention and

concern. When the husband had a cold and a racking toothache the wife

heeded not, except to jeer. It is always the woman's part to fill and

light the pipe; Nei Takauti handed hers in silence to the wedded page;

but she carried it herself, as though the page were not entirely

trusted. Thus she kept the money, but it was he who ran the errands,

anxiously sedulous. A cloud on her face dimmed instantly his beaming

looks; on an early visit to their maniap' my wife saw he had cause to be

wary. Nan Tok' had a friend with him, a giddy young thing, of his own

age and sex; and they had worked themselves into that stage of

jocularity when consequences are too often disregarded. Nei Takauti

mentioned her own name. Instantly Nan Tok' held up two fingers, his

friend did likewise, both in an ecstasy of slyness. It was plain the

lady had two names; and from the nature of their merriment, and the

wrath that gathered on her brow, there must be something ticklish in the

second. The husband pronounced it; a well-directed cocoa-nut from the

hand of his wife caught him on the side of the head, and the voices and

the mirth of these indiscreet young gentlemen ceased for the day.

The people of Eastern Polynesia are never at a loss; their etiquette is

absolute and plenary; in every circumstance it tells them what to do and

how to do it. The Gilbertines are seemingly more free, and pay for their

freedom (like ourselves) in frequent perplexity. This was often the case

with the topsy-turvy couple. We had once supplied them during a visit

with a pipe and tobacco; and when they had smoked and were about to

leave, they found themselves confronted with a problem: should they take

or leave what remained of the tobacco? The piece of plug was taken up,

it was laid down again, it was handed back and forth, and argued over,

till the wife began to look haggard and the husband elderly. They ended

by taking it, and I wager were not yet clear of the compound before they

were sure they had decided wrong. Another time they had been given each

a liberal cup of coffee, and Nan Tok' with difficulty and disaffection

made an end of his. Nei Takauti had taken some, she had no mind for

more, plainly conceived it would be a breach of manners to set down the

cup unfinished, and ordered her wedded retainer to dispose of what was

left. "I have swallowed all I can, I cannot swallow more, it is a

physical impossibility," he seemed to say; and his stern officer

reiterated her commands with secret imperative signals. Luckless dog!

but in mere humanity we came to the rescue and removed the cup.

I cannot but smile over this funny household; yet I remember the good

souls with affection and respect. Their attention to ourselves was

surprising. The garlands are much esteemed, the blossoms must be sought

far and wide; and though they had many retainers to call to their aid,

we often saw themselves passing afield after the blossoms, and the wife

engaged with her own hands in putting them together. It was no want of

heart, only that disregard so incident to husbands, that made Nei

Takauti despise the sufferings of Nan Tok'. When my wife was unwell she

proved a diligent and kindly nurse; and the pair, to the extreme

embarrassment of the sufferer, became fixtures in the sick-room. This

rugged, capable, imperious old dame, with the wild eyes, had deep and

tender qualities; her pride in her young husband it seemed that she

dissembled, fearing possibly to spoil him; and when she spoke of her

dead son there came something tragic in her face. But I seemed to trace

in the Gilbertines a virility of sense and sentiment which distinguishes

them (like their harsh and uncouth language) from their brother

islanders in the east.

PART V

THE GILBERTS--APEMAMA

CHAPTER I

THE KING OF APEMAMA: THE ROYAL TRADER

There is one great personage in the Gilberts: Tembinok' of Apemama:

solely conspicuous, the hero of song, the butt of gossip. Through the

rest of the group the kings are slain or fallen in tutelage: Tembinok'

alone remains, the last tyrant, the last erect vestige of a dead

society. The white man is everywhere else, building his houses, drinking

his gin, getting in and out of trouble with the weak native governments.

There is only one white on Apemama, and he on sufferance, living far

from court, and hearkening and watching his conduct like a mouse in a

cat's ear. Through all the other islands a stream of native visitors

comes and goes, travelling by families, spending years on the grand

tour. Apemama alone is left upon one side, the tourist dreading to risk

himself within the clutch of Tembinok'. And fear of the same Gorgon

follows and troubles them at home. Maiana once paid him tribute; he once

fell upon and seized Nonuti: first steps to the empire of the

archipelago. A British warship coming on the scene, the conqueror was

driven to disgorge, his career checked in the outset, his dear-bought

armoury sunk in his own lagoon. But the impression had been made:

periodical fear of him still shakes the islands; rumour depicts him

mustering his canoes for a fresh onfall; rumour can name his

destination; and Tembinok' figures in the patriotic war-songs of the

Gilberts like Napoleon in those of our grandfathers.

We were at sea, bound from Mariki to Nonuti and Tapituea, when the wind

came suddenly fair for Apemama. The course was at once changed; all

hands were turned-to to clean ship, the decks holy-stoned, the cabin

washed, the trade-room overhauled. In all our cruising we never saw the

_Equator_ so smart as she was made for Tembinok'. Nor was Captain Reid

alone in these coquetries; for, another schooner chancing to arrive

during my stay in Apemama, I found that she also was dandified for the

occasion. And the two cases stand alone in my experience of South Sea

traders.

We had on board a family of native tourists, from the grandsire to the

babe in arms, trying (against an extraordinary series of ill-luck) to

regain their native island of Peru.[8] Five times already they had paid

their fare and taken ship; five times they had been disappointed,

dropped penniless upon strange islands, or carried back to Butaritari,

whence they sailed. This last attempt had been no better-starred; their

provisions were exhausted. Peru was beyond hope, and they had cheerfully

made up their minds to a fresh stage of exile in Tapituea or Nonuti.

With this slant of wind their random destination became once more

changed; and like the Calendar's pilot, when the "black mountains" hove

in view, they changed colour and beat upon their breasts. Their camp,

which was on deck in the ship's waist, resounded with complaint. They

would be set to work, they must become slaves, escape was hopeless, they

must live and toil and die in Apemama, in the tyrant's den. With this

sort of talk they so greatly terrified their children, that one (a big

hulking boy) must at last be torn screaming from the schooner's side.

And their fears were wholly groundless. I have little doubt they were

not suffered to be idle; but I can vouch for it that they were kindly

and generously used. For, the matter of a year later, I was once more

shipmate with these inconsistent wanderers on board the _Janet Nicoll_.

Their fare was paid by Tembinok'; they who had gone ashore from the

_Equator_ destitute, reappeared upon the _Janet_ with new clothes, laden

with mats and presents, and bringing with them a magazine of food, on

which they lived like fighting-cocks throughout the voyage; I saw them

at length repatriated, and I must say they showed more concern on

quitting Apemama than delight at reaching home.

We entered by the north passage (Sunday, September 1st), dodging among

shoals. It was a day of fierce equatorial sunshine; but the breeze was

strong and chill; and the mate, who conned the schooner from the

cross-trees, returned shivering to the deck. The lagoon was thick with

many-tinted wavelets; a continuous roaring of the outer sea overhung the

anchorage; and the long, hollow crescent of palm ruffled and sparkled in

the wind. Opposite our berth the beach was seen to be surmounted for

some distance by a terrace of white coral, seven or eight feet high and

crowned in turn by the scattered and incongruous buildings of the

palace. The village adjoins on the south, a cluster of high-roofed

maniap's. And village and palace seemed deserted.

We were scarce yet moored, however, before distant and busy figures

appeared upon the beach, a boat was launched, and a crew pulled out to

us bringing the king's ladder. Tembinok' had once an accident; has

feared ever since to intrust his person to the rotten chandlery of South

Sea traders; and devised in consequence a frame of wood, which is

brought on board a ship as soon as she appears, and remains lashed to

her side until she leave. The boat's crew, having applied this engine,

returned at once to shore. They might not come on board; neither might

we land, or not without danger of offence; the king giving pratique in

person. An interval followed, during which dinner was delayed for the

great man; the prelude of the ladder giving us some notion of his

weighty body and sensible, ingenious character, had highly whetted our

curiosity; and it was with something like excitement that we saw the

beach and terrace suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king and

party embark, the boat (a man-of-war gig) come flying towards us dead

before the wind, and the royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount

the ladder with a jealous diffidence, and descend heavily on deck.

Not long ago he was overgrown with fat, obscured to view, and a burthen

to himself. Captains visiting the island advised him to walk; and though

it broke the habits of a life and the traditions of his rank, he

practised the remedy with benefit. His corpulence is now portable; you

would call him lusty rather than fat; but his gait is still dull,

stumbling, and elephantine. He neither stops nor hastens, but goes about

his business with an implacable deliberation. We could never see him and

not be struck with his extraordinary natural means for the theatre: a

beaked profile like Dante's in the mask, a mane of long black hair, the

eye brilliant, imperious, and inquiring: for certain parts, and to one

who could have used it, the face was a fortune. His voice matched it

well, being shrill, powerful, and uncanny, with a note like a

sea-bird's. Where there are no fashions, none to set them, few to follow

them if they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses--as Sir Charles

Grandison lived--"to his own heart." Now he wears a woman's frock, now a

naval uniform; now (and more usually) figures in a masquerade costume of

his own design: trousers and a singular jacket with shirt tails, the cut

and fit wonderful for island workmanship, the material always handsome,

sometimes green velvet, sometimes cardinal red silk. This masquerade

becomes him admirably. In the woman's frock he looks ominous and weird

beyond belief. I see him now come pacing towards me in the cruel sun,

solitary, a figure out of Hoffmann.

A visit on board ship, such as that at which we now assisted, makes a

chief part and by far the chief diversion of the life of Tembinok'. He

is not only the sole ruler, he is the sole merchant of his triple

kingdom, Apemama, Aranuka, and Kuria, well-planted islands. The taro

goes to the chiefs, who divide as they please among their immediate

adherents; but certain fish, turtles--which abound in Kuria,--and the

whole produce of the coco-palm, belong exclusively to Tembinok'. "A'

cobra[9] berong me," observed his majesty with, a wave of his hand; and

he counts and sells it by the houseful. "You got copra, king?" I have

heard a trader ask. "I got two, three outches,"[10] his majesty replied:

"I think three." Hence the commercial importance of Apemama, the trade

of three islands being centred there in a single hand; hence it is that

so many whites have tried in vain to gain or to preserve a footing;

hence ships are adorned, cooks have special orders, and captains array

themselves in smiles, to greet the king. If he be pleased with his

welcome and the fare he may pass days on board, and every day, and

sometimes every hour, will be of profit to the ship. He oscillates

between the cabin, where he is entertained with strange meats, and the

trade-room, where he enjoys the pleasures of shopping on a scale to

match his person. A few obsequious attendants squat by the house door,

awaiting his least signal. In the boat, which has been suffered to drop

astern, one or two of his wives lie covered from the sun under mats,

tossed by the short sea of the lagoon, and enduring agonies of heat and

tedium. This severity is now and then relaxed and the wives allowed on

board. Three or four were thus favoured on the day of our arrival:

substantial ladies airily attired in _ridis_. Each had a share of copra,

her _peculium_, to dispose of for herself. The display in the

trade-room--hats, ribbons, dresses, scents, tins of salmon--the pride of

the eye and the lust of the flesh--tempted them in vain. They had but

the one idea--tobacco, the island currency, tantamount to minted gold;

returned to shore with it, burthened but rejoicing; and late into the

night, on the royal terrace, were to be seen counting the sticks by

lamplight in the open air.

The king is no such economist. He is greedy of things new and foreign.

House after house, chest after chest, in the palace precinct, is

already crammed with clocks, musical boxes, blue spectacles, umbrellas,

knitted waistcoats, bolts of stuff, tools, rifles, fowling-pieces,

medicines, European foods, sewing-machines, and, what is more

extraordinary, stoves: all that ever caught his eye, tickled his

appetite, pleased him for its use, or puzzled him with its apparent

inutility. And still his lust is unabated. He is possessed by the seven

devils of the collector. He hears a thing spoken of, and a shadow comes

on his face. "I think I no got him," he will say; and the treasures he

has seem worthless in comparison. If a ship be bound for Apemama, the

merchant racks his brain to hit upon some novelty. This he leaves

carelessly in the main cabin or partly conceals in his own berth, so

that the king shall spy it for himself. "How much you want?" inquires

Tembinok', passing and pointing. "No, king; that too dear," returns the

trader. "I think I like him," says the king. This was a bowl of

gold-fish. On another occasion it was scented soap. "No, king; that cost

too much," said the trader; "too good for a Kanaka." "How much you got?

I take him all," replied his majesty, and became the lord of seventeen

boxes at two dollars a cake. Or again, the merchant feigns the article

is not for sale, is private property, an heirloom or a gift; and the

trick infallibly succeeds. Thwart the king and you hold him. His

autocratic nature rears at the affront of opposition. He accepts it for

a challenge; sets his teeth like a hunter going at a fence; and with no

mark of emotion, scarce even of interest, stolidly piles up the price.

Thus, for our sins, he took a fancy to my wife's dressing-bag, a thing

entirely useless to the man, and sadly battered by years of service.

Early one forenoon he came to our house, sat down, and abruptly offered

to purchase it. I told him I sold nothing, and the bag at any rate was a

present from a friend; but he was acquainted with these pretexts from of

old, and knew what they were worth and how to meet them. Adopting what I

believe is called "the object method," he drew out a bag of English

gold, sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and began to lay them one by one

in silence on the table; at each fresh piece reading our faces with a

look. In vain I continued to protest I was no trader; he deigned not to

reply. There must have been twenty pounds on the table, he was still

going on, and irritation had begun to mingle with our embarrassment,

when a happy idea came to our delivery. Since his majesty thought so

much of the bag, we said, we must beg him to accept it as a present. It

was the most surprising turn in Tembinok's experience. He perceived too

late that his persistence was unmannerly; hung his head a while in

silence: then, lifting up a sheepish countenance, "I 'shamed," said the

tyrant. It was the first and the last time we heard him own to a flaw in

his behaviour. Half an hour after he sent us a camphor-wood chest, worth

only a few dollars--but then heaven knows what Tembinok' had paid for

it.

Cunning by nature, and versed for forty years in the government of men,

it must not be supposed that he is cheated blindly, or has resigned

himself without resistance to be the milch-cow of the passing trader.

His efforts have been even heroic. Like Nakaeia of Makin, he has owned

schooners. More fortunate than Nakaeia, he has found captains. Ships of

his have sailed as far as to the colonies. He has trafficked direct, in

his own bottoms, with New Zealand. And even so, even there, the

world-enveloping dishonesty of the white man prevented him; his profit

melted, his ship returned in debt, the money for the insurance was

embezzled, and when the _Coronet_ came to be lost, he was astonished to

find he had lost all. At this he dropped his weapons; owned he might as

hopefully wrestle with the winds of heaven; and like an experienced

sheep, submitted his fleece thenceforward to the shearers. He is the

last man in the world to waste anger on the incurable; accepts it with

cynical composure; asks no more in those he deals with than a certain

decency of moderation; drives as good a bargain as he can; and when he

considers he is more than usually swindled, writes it in his memory

against the merchant's name. He once ran over to me a list of captains

and supercargoes with whom he had done business, classing them under

three heads: "He cheat a litty"--"He cheat plenty"--and "I think he

cheat too much." For the first two classes he expressed perfect

toleration; sometimes, but not always, for the third. I was present when

a certain merchant was turned about his business, and was the means

(having a considerable influence ever since the bag) of patching up the

dispute. Even on the day of our arrival there was like to have been a

hitch with Captain Reid: the ground of which is perhaps worth recital.

Among goods exported specially for Tembinok' there is a beverage known

(and labelled) as Hennessy's brandy. It is neither Hennessy, nor even

brandy; it is about the colour of sherry, but is not sherry; tastes of

kirsch, and yet neither is it kirsch. The king, at least, has grown used

to this amazing brand, and rather prides himself upon the taste; and any

substitution is a double offence, being at once to cheat him and to cast

a doubt upon his palate. A similar weakness is to be observed in all

connoisseurs. Now, the last case sold by the _Equator_ was found to

contain a different and I would fondly fancy a superior distillation;

and the conversation opened very black for Captain Reid. But Tembinok'

is a moderate man. He was reminded and admitted that all men were liable

to error, even himself; accepted the principle that a fault handsomely

acknowledged should be condoned; and wound the matter up with this

proposal: "Tuppoti[11] I mi'take, you 'peakee me. Tuppoti you mi'take, I

'peakee you. Mo' betta."

After dinner and supper in the cabin, a glass or two of "Hennetti"--the

genuine article this time, with the kirsch bouquet,--and five hours'

lounging on the trade-room counter, royalty embarked for home. Three

tacks grounded the boat before the palace; the wives were carried

ashore on the backs of vassals; Tembinok' stepped on a railed platform

like a steamer's gangway, and was borne shoulder-high through the

shallows, up the beach, and by an inclined plane, paved with pebbles, to

the glaring terrace where he dwells.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] In the Gilbert group.

[9] Copra: the dried kernel of the cocoa-nut, the chief article of

commerce throughout the Pacific Islands.

[10] Houses.

[11] Suppose.

CHAPTER II

THE KING OF APEMAMA: FOUNDATION OF EQUATOR TOWN

Our first sight of Tembinok' was a matter of concern, almost alarm, to

my whole party. We had a favour to seek; we must approach in the proper

courtly attitude of a suitor; and must either please him or fail in the

main purpose of our voyage. It was our wish to land and live in Apemama,

and see more near at hand the odd character of the man and the odd (or

rather ancient) condition of his island. In all other isles of the South

Seas a white man may land with his chest, and set up house for a

lifetime, if he choose, and if he have the money or the trade; no

hindrance is conceivable. But Apemama is a close island, lying there in

the sea with closed doors; the king himself, like a vigilant officer,

ready at the wicket to scrutinise and reject intrenching visitors. Hence

the attraction of our enterprise; not merely because it was a little

difficult, but because this social quarantine, a curiosity in itself,

has been the preservative of others.

Tembinok', like most tyrants, is a conservative; like many

conservatives, he eagerly welcomes new ideas, and, except in the field

of politics, leans to practical reform. When the missionaries came,

professing a knowledge of the truth, he readily received them; attended

their worship, acquired the accomplishment of public prayer, and made

himself a student at their feet. It is thus--it is by the cultivation of

similar passing chances--that he has learned to read, to write, to

cipher, and to speak his queer, personal English, so different from

ordinary "Beach de Mar," so much more obscure, expressive, and

condensed. His education attended to, he found time to become critical

of the new inmates. Like Nakaeia of Makin, he is an admirer of silence

in the island; broods over it like a great ear; has spies who report

daily; and had rather his subjects sang than talked. The service, and in

particular the sermon, were thus sure to become offences: "Here, in my

island, _I_ 'peak," he once observed to me. "My chieps no 'peak--do what

I talk." He looked at the missionary, and what did he see? "See Kanaka

'peak in a big outch!" he cried, with a strong ring of sarcasm. Yet he

endured the subversive spectacle, and might even have continued to

endure it, had not a fresh point arisen. He looked again, to employ his

own figure; and the Kanaka was no longer speaking, he was doing

worse--he was building a copra-house. The king was touched in his chief

interests; revenue and prerogative were threatened. He considered

besides (and some think with him) that trade is incompatible with the

missionary claims. "Tuppoti mitonary think 'good man': very good.

Tuppoti he think 'cobra': no good. I send him away ship." Such was his

abrupt history of the evangelist in Apemama.

Similar deportations are common: "I send him away ship" is the epitaph

of not a few, his majesty paying the exile's fare to the next place of

call. For instance, being passionately fond of European food, he has

several times added to his household a white cook, and one after another

these have been deported. They, on their side, swear they were not paid

their wages; he, on his, that they robbed and swindled him beyond

endurance: both perhaps justly. A more important case was that of an

agent despatched (as I heard the story) by a firm of merchants to worm

his way into the king's good graces, become, if possible, premier, and

handle the copra in the interests of his employers. He obtained

authority to land, practised his fascinations, was patiently listened to

by Tembinok', supposed himself on the highway to success; and behold!

when the next ship touched at Apemama, the would-be premier was flung

into a boat--had on board--his fare paid, and so good-bye. But it is

needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the

eating. When we came to Apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled

for a place in that rich market, one remained--a silent, sober,

solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "I think he good;

he no 'peak."

I was warned at the outset we might very well fail in our design; yet

never dreamed of what proved to be the fact, that we should be left

four-and-twenty hours in suspense and come within an ace of ultimate

rejection. Captain Reid had primed himself; no sooner was the king on

board, and the Hennetti question amicably settled, than he proceeded to

express my request and give an abstract of my claims and virtues. The

gammon about Queen Victoria's son might do for Butaritari; it was out of

the question here; and I now figured as "one of the Old Men of England,"

a person of deep knowledge, come expressly to visit Tembinok's dominion,

and eager to report upon it to the no less eager Queen Victoria. The

king made no shadow of an answer, and presently began upon a different

subject. We might have thought he had not heard, or not understood; only

that we found ourselves the subject of a constant study. As we sat at

meals, he took us in series and fixed upon each, for near a minute at a

time, the same hard and thoughtful stare. As he thus looked he seemed to

forget himself, the subject and the company, and to become absorbed in

the process of his thought; the look was wholly impersonal: I have seen

the same in the eyes of portrait-painters. The counts upon which whites

have been deported are mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling

overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of the

sinews of his power, _'peaking_, and political intrigue. I felt

guiltless upon all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in

a gift: how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? The

rest of the party shared my innocence and my embarrassment. They shared

also in my mortification when after two whole meal-times and the odd

moments of an afternoon devoted to this reconnoitring, Tembinok' took

his leave in silence. Next morning, the same undisguised study, the same

silence, was resumed; and the second day had come to its maturity before

I was informed abruptly that I had stood the ordeal. "I look your eye.

You good man. You no lie," said the king: a doubtful compliment to a

writer of romance. Later he explained he did not quite judge by the eye

only, but the mouth as well. "Tuppoti I see man," he explained. "I no

tavvy good man, bad man. I look eye, look mouth. Then I tavvy. Look

_eye_, look mouth," he repeated. And indeed in our case the mouth had

the most to do with it, and it was by our talk that we gained admission

to the island; the king promising himself (and I believe really

amassing) a vast amount of useful knowledge ere we left.

The terms of our admission were as follows: We were to choose a site,

and the king should there build us a town. His people should work for

us, but the king only was to give them orders. One of his cooks should

come daily to help mine, and to learn of him. In case our stores ran

out, he would supply us, and be repaid on the return of the _Equator_.

On the other hand, he was to come to meals with us when so inclined;

when he stayed at home, a dish was to be sent him from our table; and I

solemnly engaged to give his subjects no liquor or money (both of which

they are forbidden to possess) and no tobacco, which they were to

receive only from the royal hand. I think I remember to have protested

against the stringency of this last article; at least, it was relaxed,

and when a man worked for me I was allowed to give him a pipe of tobacco

on the premises, but none to take away.

The site of Equator City--we named our city for the schooner--was soon

chosen. The immediate shores of the lagoon are windy and blinding;

Tembinok' himself is glad to grope blue-spectacled on his terrace; and

we fled the neighbourhood of the red _conjunctiva_, the suppurating

eyeball, and the beggar who pursues and beseeches the passing foreigner

for eyewash. Behind the town the country is diversified; here open,

sandy, uneven, and dotted with dwarfish palms; here cut up with taro

trenches, deep and shallow, and, according to the growth of the plants,

presenting now the appearance of a sandy tannery, now of an alleyed and

green garden. A path leads towards the sea, mounting abruptly to the

main level of the island--twenty or even thirty feet, although Findlay

gives five; and just hard by the top of the rise, where the coco-palms

begin to be well grown, we found a grove of pandanus, and a piece of

soil pleasantly covered with green underbush. A well was not far off

under a rustic well-house; nearer still, in a sandy cup of the land, a

pond where we might wash our clothes. The place was out of the wind, out

of the sun, and out of sight of the village. It was shown to the king,

and the town promised for the morrow.

The morrow came. Mr. Osbourne landed, found nothing done, and carried

his complaint to Tembinok'. He heard it, rose, called for a Winchester,

stepped without the royal palisade, and fired two shots in the air. A

shot in the air is the first Apemama warning; it has the force of a

proclamation in more loquacious countries; and his majesty remarked

agreeably that it would make his labourers "mo' bright." In less than

thirty minutes, accordingly, the men had mustered, the work was begun,

and we were told that we might bring our baggage when we pleased.

It was two in the afternoon ere the first boat was beached, and the long

procession of chests and crates and sacks began to straggle through the

sandy desert towards Equator Town. The grove of pandanus was practically

a thing of the past. Fire surrounded and smoke rose in the green

underbush. In a wide circuit the axes were still crashing. Those very

advantages for which the place was chosen, it had been the king's first

idea to abolish; and in the midst of this devastation there stood

already a good-sized maniap' and a small closed house. A mat was spread

near by for Tembinok'; here he sat superintending, in cardinal red, a

pith helmet on his head, a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, a wife

stretched at his back with custody of the matches and tobacco. Twenty or

thirty feet in front of him the bulk of the workers squatted on the

ground; some of the bush here survived; and in this the commons sat

nearly to their shoulders, and presented only an arc of brown faces,

black heads, and attentive eyes fixed on his majesty. Long pauses

reigned, during which the subjects stared and the king smoked. Then

Tembinok' would raise his voice and speak shrilly and briefly. There was

never a response in words; but if the speech were jesting, there came by

way of answer discreet, obsequious laughter--such laughter as we hear in

schoolrooms; and if it were practical, the sudden uprising and departure

of the squad. Twice they so disappeared, and returned with further

elements of the city; a second house and a second maniap'. It was

singular to spy, far off through the coco-stems, the silent oncoming of

the maniap', at first (it seemed) swimming spontaneously in the air--but

on a nearer view betraying under the eaves many score of moving naked

legs. In all the affair servile obedience was no less remarkable than

servile deliberation. The gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly

weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their

lives; and except for civility, they bestirred themselves like so many

American hotel clerks. The spectator was aware of an unobtrusive yet

invincible inertia, at which the skipper of a trading dandy might have

torn his hair.

Yet the work was accomplished. By dusk, when his majesty withdrew, the

town was founded and complete, a new and ruder Amphion having called it

from nothing with three cracks of a rifle. And the next morning the same

conjurer obliged us with a further miracle: a mystic rampart fencing us,

so that the path which ran by our doors became suddenly impassable, the

inhabitants who had business across the isle must fetch a wide circuit,

and we sat in the midst in a transparent privacy, seeing, seen, but

unapproachable, like bees in a glass hive. The outward and visible sign

of this glamour was no more than a few ragged coco-leaf garlands round

the stems of the outlying palms; but its significance reposed on the

tremendous sanction of the tapu and the guns of Tembinok'.

We made our first meal that night in the improvised city, where we were

to stay two months, and which--so soon as we had done with it--was to

vanish in a day as it appeared, its elements returning whence they came,

the tapu raised, the traffic on the path resumed, the sun and the moon

peering in vain between the palm-trees for the bygone work, the wind

blowing over an empty site. Yet the place, which is now only an episode

in some memories, seemed to have been built, and to be destined to

endure, for years. It was a busy hamlet. One of the maniap's we made our

dining-room, one the kitchen. The houses we reserved for sleeping. They

were on the admirable Apemama plan: out and away the best house in the

South Seas; standing some three feet above the ground on posts; the

sides of woven flaps, which can be raised to admit light and air, or

lowered to shut out the wind and the rain: airy, healthy, clean, and

watertight. We had a hen of a remarkable kind: almost unique in my

experience; being a hen that occasionally laid eggs. Not far off, Mrs.

Stevenson tended a garden of salad and shalots. The salad was devoured

by the hen--which was her bane. The shalots were served out a leaf at a

time, and welcomed and relished like peaches. Toddy and green cocoa-nuts

were brought us daily. We once had a present of fish from the king, and

once of a turtle. Sometimes we shot so-called plover along on the shore,

sometimes wild chicken in the bush. The rest of our diet was from tins.

Our occupations were very various. While some of the party would be away

sketching, Mr. Osbourne and I hammered away at a novel. We read Gibbon

and Carlyle aloud; we blew on flageolets, we strummed on guitars; we

took photographs by the light of the sun, the moon, and flash-powder;

sometimes we played cards. Pot-hunting engaged a part of our leisure. I

have myself passed afternoons in the exciting but innocuous pursuit of

winged animals with a revolver; and it was fortunate there were better

shots of the party, and fortunate the king could lend us a more suitable

weapon, in the form of an excellent fowling-piece, or our spare diet had

been sparer still.

Night was the time to see our city, after the moon was up, after the

lamps were lighted, and so long as the fire sparkled in the cook-house.

We suffered from a plague of flies and mosquitoes, comparable to that of

Egypt; our dinner-table (lent, like all our furniture, by the king) must

be enclosed in a tent of netting, our citadel and refuge; and this

became all luminous, and bulged and beaconed under the eaves, like the

globe of some monstrous lamp under the margin of its shade. Our cabins,

the sides being propped at a variety of inclinations, spelled out

strange, angular patterns of brightness. In his roofed and open kitchen,

Ah Fu was to be seen by lamp and firelight, dabbling among pots. Over

all, there fell in the season an extraordinary splendour of mellow

moonshine. The sand sparkled as with the dust of diamonds; the stars had

vanished. At intervals, a dusky night-bird, slow and low flying, passed

in the colonnade of the tree stems and uttered a hoarse croaking cry.

CHAPTER III

THE KING OF APEMAMA: THE PALACE OF MANY WOMEN

The palace, or rather the ground which it includes, is several acres in

extent. A terrace encloses it toward the lagoon; on the side of the

land, a palisade with several gates. These are scarce intended for

defence; a man, if he were strong, might easily pluck down the palisade;

he need not be specially active to leap from the beach upon the terrace.

There is no parade of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is under

lock and key; and the only sentinels are certain inconspicuous old women

lurking day and night before the gates. By day, these crones were often

engaged in boiling syrup or the like household occupation; by night,

they lay ambushed in the shadow or crouched along the palisade, filling

the office of eunuchs to this harem, sole guards upon a tyrant life.

Female wardens made a fit outpost for this palace of many women. Of the

number of the king's wives I have no guess; and but a loose idea of

their function. He himself displayed embarrassment when they were

referred to as his wives, called them himself "my pamily," and explained

they were his "cutcheons"--cousins. We distinguished four of the crowd:

the king's mother; his sister, a grave, trenchant woman, with much of

her brother's intelligence; the queen proper, to whom (and to whom

alone) my wife was formally presented; and the favourite of the hour, a

pretty, graceful girl, who sat with the king daily, and once (when he

shed tears) consoled him with caresses. I am assured that even with her

his relations are platonic. In the background figured a multitude of

ladies, the lean, the plump, and the elephantine, some in sacque frocks,

some in the hairbreadth _ridi_; high-born and low, slave and mistress;

from the queen to the scullion, from the favourite to the scraggy

sentries at the palisade. Not all of these of course are of "my

pamily,"--many are mere attendants; yet a surprising number shared the

responsibility of the king's trust. These were key-bearers, treasurers,

wardens of the armoury, the napery, and the stores. Each knew and did

her part to admiration. Should anything be required--a particular gun,

perhaps, or a particular bolt of stuff,--the right queen was summoned;

she came bringing the right chest, opened it in the king's presence, and

displayed her charge in perfect preservation--the gun cleaned and oiled,

the goods duly folded. Without delay or haste, and with the minimum of

speech, the whole great establishment turned on wheels like a machine.

Nowhere have I seen order more complete and pervasive. And yet I was

always reminded of Norse tales of trolls and ogres who kept their hearts

buried in the ground for the mere safety, and must confide the secret to

their wives. For these weapons are the life of Tembinok'. He does not

aim at popularity; but drives and braves his subjects, with a simplicity

of domination which it is impossible not to admire, hard not to

sympathise with. Should one out of so many prove faithless, should the

armoury be secretly unlocked, should the crones have dozed by the

palisade and the weapons find their way unseen into the village,

revolution would be nearly certain, death the most probable result, and

the spirit of the tyrant of Apemama flit to rejoin his predecessors of

Mariki and Tapituea. Yet those whom he so trusts are all women, and all

rivals.

There is indeed a ministry and staff of males: cook, steward, carpenter,

and supercargoes: the hierarchy of a schooner. The spies, "his majesty's

daily papers," as we called them, come every morning to report, and go

again. The cook and steward are concerned with the table only. The

supercargoes, whose business it is to keep tally of the copra at three

pounds a month and a percentage, are rarely in the palace; and two at

least are in the other islands. The carpenter, indeed, shrewd and jolly

old Rubam--query, Reuben?--promoted on my last visit to the greater

dignity of governor, is daily present, altering, extending,

embellishing, pursuing the endless series of the king's inventions; and

his majesty will sometimes pass an afternoon watching and talking with

Rubam at his work. But the males are still outsiders; none seems to be

armed, none is intrusted with a key; by dusk they are all usually

departed from the palace; and the weight of the monarchy and of the

monarch's life reposes unshared on the women.

Here is a household unlike, indeed, to one of ours; more unlike still to

the Oriental harem: that of an elderly childless man, his days menaced,

dwelling alone amid a bevy of women of all ages, ranks, and

relationships,--the mother, the sister, the cousin, the legitimate wife,

the concubine, the favourite, the eldest born, and she of yesterday; he,

in their midst, the only master, the only male, the sole dispenser of

honours, clothes, and luxuries, the sole mark of multitudinous ambitions

and desires. I doubt if you could find a man in Europe so bold as to

attempt this piece of tact and government. And seemingly Tembinok'

himself had trouble in the beginning. I hear of him shooting at a wife

for some levity on board a schooner. Another, on some more serious

offence, he slew outright; he exposed her body in an open box, and (to

make the warning more memorable) suffered it to putrefy before the

palace gate. Doubtless his growing years have come to his assistance;

for upon so large a scale it is more easy to play the father than the

husband. And to-day, at least to the eye of a stranger, all seems to go

smoothly, and the wives to be proud of their trust, proud of their rank,

and proud of their cunning lord.

I conceived they made rather a hero of the man. A popular master in a

girls' school might, perhaps, offer a figure of his preponderating

station. But then the master does not eat, sleep, live, and wash his

dirty linen in the midst of his admirers; he escapes, he has a room of

his own, he leads a private life; if he had nothing else, he has the

holidays, and the more unhappy Tembinok' is always on the stage and on

the stretch.

In all my coming and going, I never heard him speak harshly or express

the least displeasure. An extreme, rather heavy, benignity--the

benignity of one sure to be obeyed--marked his demeanour; so that I was

at times reminded of Samuel Richardson in his circle of admiring women.

The wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at

home--or, say, like doting but respectable aunts. Altogether, I conclude

that he rules his seraglio much more by art than terror; and those who

give a different account (and who have none of them enjoyed my

opportunities of observation) perhaps failed to distinguish between

degrees of rank, between "my pamily" and the hangers-on, laundresses,

and prostitutes.

A notable feature is the evening game of cards; when lamps are set forth

upon the terrace, and "I and my pamily" play for tobacco by the hour. It

is highly characteristic of Tembinok' that he must invent a game for

himself; highly characteristic of his worshipping household that they

should swear by the absurd invention. It is founded on poker, played

with the honours out of many packs, and inconceivably dreary. But I have

a passion for all games, studied it, and am supposed to be the only

white who ever fairly grasped its principle: a fact for which the wives

(with whom I was not otherwise popular) admired me with acclamation. It

was impossible to be deceived; this was a genuine feeling: they were

proud of their private game, had been cut to the quick by the want of

interest shown in it by others, and expanded under the flattery of my

attention. Tembinok' puts up a double stake, and receives in return two

hands to choose from: a shallow artifice which the wives (in all these

years) have not yet fathomed. He himself, when talking with me

privately, made not the least secret that he was secure of winning; and

it was thus he explained his recent liberality on board the _Equator_.

He let the wives buy their own tobacco, which pleased them at the

moment. He won it back at cards, which made him once more, and without

fresh expense, that which he ought to be,--the sole fount of all

indulgences. And he summed the matter up in that phrase with which he

almost always concludes any account of his policy: "Mo' betta."

The palace compound is laid with broken coral, excruciating to the eyes

and the bare feet, but exquisitely raked and weeded. A score or more of

buildings lie in a sort of street along the palisade and scattered on

the margin of the terrace; dwelling-houses for the wives and the

attendants, storehouses for the king's curios and treasures, spacious

maniap's for feast or council, some on pillars of wood, some on piers of

masonry. One was still in hand, a new invention, the king's latest born:

a European frame-house built for coolness inside a lofty maniap': its

roof planked like a ship's deck to be a raised, shady, and yet private

promenade. It was here the king spent hours with Rubam; here I would

sometimes join them; the place had a most singular appearance; and I

must say I was greatly taken with the fancy, and joined with relish in

the counsels of the architects.

Suppose we had business with his majesty by day: we strolled over the

sand and by the dwarfish palms, exchanged a "_Konamaori_" with the

crone on duty, and entered the compound. The wide sheet of coral glared

before us deserted; all having stowed themselves in dark canvas from the

excess of room. I have gone to and fro in that labyrinth of a place,

seeking the king; and the only breathing creature I could find was when

I peered under the eaves of a maniap', and saw the brawny body of one of

the wives stretched on the floor, a naked Amazon plunged in noiseless

slumber. If it were still the hour of the "morning papers" the quest

would be more easy, the half-dozen obsequious, sly dogs squatting on the

ground outside a house, crammed as far as possible in its narrow shadow,

and turning to the king a row of leering faces. Tembinok' would be

within, the flaps of the cabin raised, the trade blowing through,

hearing their report. Like journalists nearer home, when the day's news

were scanty, these would make the more of it in words; and I have known

one to fill up a barren morning with an imaginary conversation of two

dogs. Sometimes the king deigns to laugh, sometimes to question or jest

with them, his voice sounding shrilly from the cabin. By his side he may

have the heir-apparent, Paul, his nephew and adopted son, six years old,

stark naked, and a model of young human beauty. And there will always be

the favourite and perhaps two other wives awake; four more lying supine

under mats and whelmed in slumber. Or perhaps we came later, fell on a

more private hour, and found Tembinok' retired in the house with the

favourite, an earthenware spittoon, a leaden inkpot, and a commercial

ledger. In the last, lying on his belly, he writes from day to day the

uneventful history of his reign; and when thus employed he betrayed a

touch of fretfulness on interruption with which I was well able to

sympathise. The royal annalist once read me a page or so, translating as

he went; but the passage being genealogical, and the author boggling

extremely in his version, I own I have been sometimes better

entertained. Nor does he confine himself to prose, but touches the lyre

too, in his leisure moments, and passes for the chief bard of his

kingdom, as he is its sole public character, leading architect, and only

merchant. His competence, however, does not reach to music; and his

verses, when they are ready, are taught to a professional musician, who

sets them and instructs the chorus. Asked what his songs were about,

Tembinok' replied, "Sweethearts and trees and the sea. Not all the same

true, all the same lie." For a condensed view of lyrical poetry (except

that he seems to have forgot the stars and flowers) this would be hard

to mend. These multifarious occupations bespeak (in a native and an

absolute prince) unusual activity of mind.

The palace court at noon is a spot to be remembered with awe, the

visitor scrambling there, on the loose stones, through a splendid

nightmare of light and heat; but the sweep of the wind delivers it from

flies and mosquitoes; and with the set of sun it became heavenly. I

remember it best on moonless nights. The air was like a bath of milk.

Countless shining stars were overhead, the lagoon paved with them. Herds

of wives squatted by companies on the gravel, softly chatting. Tembinok'

would doff his jacket, and sit bare and silent, perhaps meditating

songs; the favourite usually by him, silent also. Meanwhile in the midst

of the court, the palace lanterns were being lit and marshalled in rank

upon the ground--six or eight square yards of them; a sight that gave

one strange ideas of the number of "my pamily"; such a sight as may be

seen about dusk in a corner of some great terminus at home. Presently

these fared off into all corners of the precinct, lighting the last

labours of the day, lighting one after another to their rest that

prodigious company of women. A few lingered in the middle of the court

for the card-party, and saw the honours shuffled and dealt, and

Tembinok' deliberating between his two hands, and the queens losing

their tobacco. Then these also were scattered and extinguished; and

their place was taken by a great bonfire, the night-light of the palace.

When this was no more, smaller fires burned likewise at the gates. These

were tended by the crones, unseen, unsleeping--not always unheard.

Should any approach in the dark hours, a guarded alert made the circuit

of the palisade; each sentry signalled her neighbour with a stone; the

rattle of falling pebbles passed and died away; and the wardens of

Tembinok' crouched in their places silent as before.

CHAPTER IV

THE KING OF APEMAMA: EQUATOR TOWN AND THE PALACE

Five persons were detailed to wait upon us. Uncle Parker, who brought us

toddy and green nuts, was an elderly, almost an old man, with the

spirits, the industry, and the morals of a boy of ten. His face was

ancient, droll, and diabolical, the skin stretched over taut sinews,

like a sail on the guide-rope; and he smiled with every muscle of his

head. His nuts must be counted every day, or he would deceive us in the

tale; they must be daily examined, or some would prove to be unhusked;

nothing but the king's name, and scarcely that, would hold him to his

duty. After his toils were over, he was given a pipe, matches, and

tobacco, and sat on the floor in the maniap' to smoke. He would not seem

to move from his position, and yet every day, when the things fell to be

returned, the plug had disappeared; he had found the means to conceal it

in the roof, whence he could radiantly produce it on the morrow.

Although this piece of legerdemain was performed regularly before three

or four pairs of eyes, we could never catch him in the fact; although we

searched after he was gone, we could never find the tobacco. Such were

the diversions of Uncle Parker, a man nearing sixty. But he was punished

according unto his deeds: Mrs. Stevenson took a fancy to paint him, and

the sufferings of the sitter were beyond description.

Three lasses came from the palace to do our washing and racket with Ah

Fu. They were of the lowest class, hangers-on kept for the convenience

of merchant skippers, probably low-born, perhaps out-islanders, with

little refinement whether of manner or appearance, but likely and jolly

enough wenches in their way. We called one "Guttersnipe," for you may

find her image in the slums of any city; the same lean, dark-eyed,

eager, vulgar face, the same sudden, hoarse guffaws, the same forward

and yet anxious manner, as with a tail of an eye on the policeman: only

the policeman here was a live king, and his truncheon a rifle. I doubt

if you could find anywhere out of the islands, or often there, the

parallel of "Fatty," a mountain of a girl, who must have weighed near as

many stones as she counted summers, could have given a good account of a

life-guardsman, had the face of a baby, and applied her vast mechanical

forces almost exclusively to play. But they were all three of the same

merry spirit. Our washing was conducted in a game of romps; and they

fled and pursued, and splashed, and pelted, and rolled each other in the

sand, and kept up a continuous noise of cries and laughter like holiday

children. Indeed, and however strange their own function in that austere

establishment, were they not escaped for the day from the largest and

strictest Ladies' School in the South Seas?

Our fifth attendant was no less a person than the royal cook. He was

strikingly handsome both in face and body, lazy as a slave, and insolent

as a butcher's boy. He slept and smoked on our premises in various

graceful attitudes; but so far from helping Ah Fu, he was not at the

pains to watch him. It may be said of him that he came to learn, and

remained to teach; and his lessons were at times difficult to stomach.

For example, he was sent to fill a bucket from the well. About half-way

he found my wife watering her onions, changed buckets with her, and

leaving her the empty, returned to the kitchen with the full. On another

occasion he was given a dish of dumplings for the king, was told they

must be eaten hot, and that he should carry them as fast as possible.

The wretch set oft at the rate of about a mile in the hour, head in air,

toes turned out. My patience, after a month of trial, failed me at the

sight. I pursued, caught him by his two big shoulders, and thrusting him

before me, ran with him down the hill, over the sands, and through the

applauding village, to the Speak House, where the king was then holding

a pow-wow. He had the impudence to pretend he was internally injured by

my violence, and to profess serious apprehensions for his life.

All this we endured; for the ways of Tembinok' are summary, and I was

not yet ripe to take a hand in the man's death. But in the meanwhile,

here was my unfortunate China boy slaving for the pair, and presently he

fell sick. I was now in the position of Cimondain Lantenac, and indeed

all the characters in _Quatre-Vingt-Treize_: to continue to spare the

guilty, I must sacrifice the innocent. I took the usual course and tried

to save both, with the usual consequence of failure. Well rehearsed, I

went down to the palace, found the king alone, and obliged him with a

vast amount of rigmarole. The cook was too old to learn; I feared he was

not making progress; how if we had a boy instead?--boys were more

teachable. It was all in vain; the king pierced through my disguises to

the root of the fact; saw that the cook had desperately misbehaved; and

sat a while glooming. "I think he tavvy too much," he said at last, with

grim concision; and immediately turned the talk to other subjects. The

same day another high officer, the steward, appeared in the cook's

place, and, I am bound to say, proved civil and industrious.

As soon as I left, it seems the king called for a Winchester and

strolled outside the palisade, awaiting the defaulter. That day

Tembinok' wore the woman's frock; as like as not, his make-up was

completed by a pith helmet and blue spectacles. Conceive the glaring

stretch of sand-hills, the dwarf palms with their noon-day shadows, the

line of the palisade, the crone sentries (each by a small clear fire)

cooking syrup on their posts--and this chimaera waiting with his deadly

engine. To him, enter at last the cook, strolling down the sandhill

from Equator Town, listless, vain and graceful; with no thought of

alarm. As soon as he was well within range, the travestied monarch fired

the six shots over his head, at his feet, and on either hand of him: the

second Apemama warning, startling in itself, fatal in significance, for

the next time his majesty will aim to hit. I am told the king is a crack

shot; that when he aims to kill, the grave may be got ready; and when he

aims misses by so near a margin that the culprit tastes six times the

bitterness of death. The effect upon the cook I had an opportunity of

seeing for myself. My wife and I were returning from the sea-side of the

island, when we spied one coming to meet us at a very quick, disordered

pace, between a walk and a run. As we drew nearer we saw it was the

cook, beside himself with some emotion, his usual warm, mulatto colour

declined into a bluish pallor. He passed us without word or gesture,

staring on us with the face of a Satan, and plunged on across the wood

for the unpeopled quarter of the island and the long, desert beach,

where he might rage to and fro unseen, and froth out the vials of his

wrath, fear, and humiliation. Doubtless in the curses that he there

uttered to the bursting surf and the tropic birds, the name of the

_Kaupoi_--the rich man--was frequently repeated. I had made him the

laughing-stock of the village in the affair of the king's dumplings; I

had brought him by my machinations into disgrace and the immediate

jeopardy of his days; last, and perhaps bitterest, he had found me there

by the way to spy upon him in the hour of his disorder.

Time passed, and we saw no more of him. The season of the full moon came

round, when a man thinks shame to lie sleeping; and I continued until

late--perhaps till twelve or one in the morning--to walk on the bright

sand and in the tossing shadow of the palms. I played, as I wandered, on

a flageolet, which occupied much of my attention; the fans overhead

rattled in the wind with a metallic chatter; and a bare foot falls at

any rate almost noiseless on that shifting soil. Yet when I got back to

Equator Town, where all the lights were out, and my wife (who was still

awake, and had been looking forth) asked me who it was that followed me,

I thought she spoke in jest. "Not at all," she said. "I saw him twice as

you passed, walking close at your heels. He only left you at the corner

of the maniap'; he must be still behind the cook-house." Thither I

ran--like a fool, without any weapon--and came face to face with the

cook. He was within my tapu-line, which was death in itself; he could

have no business there at such an hour but either to steal or to kill;

guilt made him timorous; and he turned and fled before me in the night

in silence. As he went I kicked him in that place where honour lies, and

he gave tongue faintly like an injured mouse. At the moment I dare say

he supposed it was a deadly instrument that touched him.

What had the man been after? I have found my music better qualified to

scatter than to collect an audience. Amateur as I was, I could not

suppose him interested in my reading of the "Carnival of Venice," or

that he would deny himself his natural rest to follow my variations on

"The Ploughboy." And whatever his design, it was impossible I should

suffer him to prowl by night among the houses. A word to the king, and

the man were not, his case being far beyond pardon. But it is one thing

to kill a man yourself; quite another to bear tales behind his back and

have him shot by a third party; and I determined to deal with the fellow

in some method of my own. I told Ah Fu the story, and bade him fetch me

the cook whenever he should find him. I had supposed this would be a

matter of difficulty; and far from that, he came of his own accord: an

act really of desperation, since his life hung by my silence, and the

best he could hope was to be forgotten. Yet he came with an assured

countenance, volunteered no apology or explanation, complained of

injuries received, and pretended he was unable to sit down. I suppose I

am the weakest man God made; I had kicked him in the least vulnerable

part of his big carcase; my foot was bare, and I had not even hurt my

foot. Ah Fu could not control his merriment. On my side, knowing what

must be the nature of his apprehensions, I found in so much impudence a

kind of gallantry, and secretly admired the man. I told him I should say

nothing of his night's adventure to the king; that I should still allow

him, when he had an errand, to come within my tapu-line by day; but if

ever I found him there after the set of the sun I would shoot him on the

spot; and to the proof showed him a revolver. He must have been

incredibly relieved; but he showed no sign of it, took himself off with

his usual dandy nonchalance, and was scarce seen by us again.

These five, then, with the substitution of the steward for the cook,

came and went, and were our only visitors. The circle of the tapu held

at arm's-length the inhabitants of the village. As for "my pamily," they

dwelt like nuns in their enclosure; only once have I met one of them

abroad, and she was the king's sister, and the place in which I found

her (the island infirmary) was very likely privileged. There remains

only the king to be accounted for. He would come strolling over, always

alone, a little before a meal-time, take a chair, and talk and eat with

us like an old family friend. Gilbertine etiquette appears defective on

the point of leave-taking. It may be remembered we had trouble in the

matter with Karaiti; and there was something childish and disconcerting

in Tembinok's abrupt "I want go home now," accompanied by a kind of

ducking rise, and followed by an unadorned retreat. It was the only blot

upon his manners, which were otherwise plain, decent, sensible, and

dignified. He never stayed long nor drank much, and copied our behaviour

where he perceived it to differ from his own. Very early in the day, for

instance, he ceased eating with his knife. It was plain he was

determined in all things to wring profit from our visit, and chiefly

upon etiquette. The quality of his white visitors puzzled and concerned

him; he would bring up name after name, and ask if its bearer were a

"big chiep," or even a "chiep" at all--which, as some were my excellent

good friends, and none were actually born in the purple, became at times

embarrassing. He was struck to learn that our classes were

distinguishable by their speech, and that certain words (for instance)

were tapu on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war; and he begged in

consequence that we should watch and correct him on the point. We were

able to assure him that he was beyond correction. His vocabulary is apt

and ample to an extraordinary degree. God knows where he collected it,

but by some instinct or some accident he has avoided all profane or

gross expressions. "Obliged," "stabbed," "gnaw," "lodge," "power,"

"company," "slender," "smooth," and "wonderful," are a few of the

unexpected words that enrich his dialect. Perhaps what pleased him most

was to hear about saluting the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. In his

gratitude for this hint he became fulsome. "Schooner cap'n no tell me,"

he cried; "I think no tavvy! You tavvy too much; tavvy 'teama', tavvy

man-a-wa'. I think you tavvy everything." Yet he gravelled me often

enough with his perpetual questions; and the false Mr. Barlow stood

frequently exposed before the royal Sandford. I remember once in

particular. We were showing the magic-lantern; a slide of Windsor Castle

was put in, and I told him there was the "outch" of Victoreea. "How many

pathom he high?" he asked, and I was dumb before him. It was the

builder, the indefatigable architect of palaces, that spoke; collector

though he was, he did not collect useless information; and all his

questions had a purpose. After etiquette, government, law, the police,

money, and medicine were his chief interests--things vitally important

to himself as a king and the father of his people. It was my part not

only to supply new information, but to correct the old. "My patha he

tell me," or "White man he tell me," would be his constant beginning;

"You think he lie?" Sometimes I thought he did. Tembinok' once brought

me a difficulty of this kind, which I was long of comprehending. A

schooner captain had told him of Captain Cook; the king was much

interested in the story; and turned for more information--not to Mr.

Stephen's Dictionary, not to the "Britannica," but to the Bible in the

Gilbert Island version (which consists chiefly of the New Testament and

the Psalms). Here he sought long and earnestly; Paul he found, and

Festus, and Alexander the coppersmith: no word of Cook. The inference

was obvious: the explorer was a myth. So hard it is, even for a man of

great natural parts like Tembinok', to grasp the ideas of a new society

and culture.

CHAPTER V

KING AND COMMONS

We saw but little of the commons of the isle. At first we met them at

the well, where they washed their linen and we drew water for the table.

The combination was distasteful; and, having a tyrant at command, we

applied to the king and had the place enclosed in our tapu. It was one

of the few favours which Tembinok' visibly boggled about granting, and

it may be conceived how little popular it made the strangers. Many

villagers passed us daily going afield; but they fetched a wide circuit

round our tapu, and seemed to avert their looks. At times we went

ourselves into the village--a strange place. Dutch by its canals,

Oriental by the height and steepness of the roofs, which looked at dusk

like temples; but we were rarely called into a house: no welcome, no

friendship, was offered us; and of home life we had but the one view:

the waking of a corpse, a frigid, painful scene: the widow holding on

her lap the cold, bluish body of her husband, and now partaking of the

refreshments which made the round of the company, now weeping and

kissing the pale mouth. ("I fear you feel this affliction deeply," said

the Scottish minister. "Eh, sir, and that I do!" replied the widow.

"I've been greetin' a' nicht; an' noo I'm just gaun to sup this bit

parritch, and then I'll begin an' greet again.") In our walks abroad I

have always supposed the islanders avoided us, perhaps from distaste,

perhaps by order; and those whom we met we took generally by surprise.

The surface of the isle is diversified with palm groves, thickets, and

romantic dingles four feet deep, relics of old taro plantations, and it

is thus possible to stumble unawares on folk resting or hiding from

their work. About pistol-shot from our township there lay a pond in the

bottom of a jungle; here the maids of the isle came to bathe, and were

several times alarmed by our intrusion. Not for them are the bright cold

rivers of Tahiti or Upolu, not for them to splash and laugh in the hour

of the dusk with a villageful of gay companions; but to steal here

solitary, to crouch in a place like a cow-wallow, and wash (if that can

be called washing) in lukewarm mud, brown as their own skins. Other, but

still rare, encounters occur to my memory. I was several times arrested

by a tender sound in the bush of voices talking, soft as flutes and with

quiet intonations. Hope told a flattering tale: I put aside the leaves;

and behold! in place of the expected dryads, a pair of all too solid

ladies squatting over a clay pipe in the ungraceful _ridi_. The beauty

of the voice and the eye was all that remained to these vast dames; but

that of the voice was exquisite indeed. It is strange I should have

never heard a more winning sound of speech, yet the dialect should be

one remarkable for violent, ugly, and outlandish vocables; so that

Tembinok' himself declared it made him weary, and professed to find

repose in talking English.

The state of this folk, of whom I saw so little, I can merely guess at.

The king himself explains the situation with some art. "No; I no pay

them," he once said. "I give them tobacco. They work for me _all the

same brothers_." It is true there was a brother once in Arden! But we

prefer the shorter word. They bear every servile mark,--levity like a

child's, incurable idleness, incurious content. The insolence of the

cook was a trait of his own; not so his levity, which he shared with the

innocent Uncle Parker. With equal unconcern both gambolled under the

shadow of the gallows, and took liberties with death that might have

surprised a careless student of man's nature. I wrote of Parker that he

behaved like a boy of ten: what was he else, being a slave of sixty? He

had passed all his years in school, fed, clad, thought for, commanded;

and had grown familiar and coquetted with the fear of punishment. By

terror you may drive men long, but not far. Here, in Apemama, they work

at the constant and the instant peril of their lives; and are plunged in

a kind of lethargy of laziness. It is common to see one go afield in his

stiff mat ungirt, so that he walks elbows-in like a trussed fowl; and

whatsoever his right hand findeth to do, the other must be off duty

holding on his clothes. It is common to see two men carrying between

them on a pole a single bucket of water. To make two bites of a cherry

is good enough: to make two burthens of a soldier's kit, for a distance

of perhaps half a furlong, passes measure. Woman, being the less

childish animal, is less relaxed by servile conditions. Even in the

king's absence, even when they were alone, I have seen Apemama women

work with constancy. But the outside to be hoped for in a man is that he

may attack his task in little languid fits, and lounge between-whiles.

So I have seen a painter, with his pipe going, and a friend by the

studio fireside. You might suppose the race to lack civility, even

vitality, until you saw them in the dance. Night after night, and

sometimes day after day, they rolled out their choruses in the great

Speak House--solemn andantes and adagios, led by the clapped hand, and

delivered with an energy that shook the roof. The time was not so slow,

though it was slow for the islands; but I have chosen rather to indicate

the effect upon the hearer. Their music had a church-like character from

near at hand, and seemed to European ears more regular than the run of

island music. Twice I have heard a discord regularly solved. From

farther off, heard at Equator Town for instance, the measures rose and

fell and crepitated like the barking of hounds in a distant kennel.

The slaves are certainly not overworked--children of ten do more without

fatigue--and the Apemama labourers have holidays, when the singing

begins early in the afternoon. The diet is hard; copra and a sweetmeat

of pounded pandanus are the only dishes I observed outside the palace;

but there seems no defect in quantity, and the king shares with them his

turtles. Three came in a boat from Kuria during our stay; one was kept

for the palace, one sent to us, one presented to the village. It is the

habit of the islanders to cook the turtle in its carapace; we had been

promised the shells, and we asked a tapu on this foolish practice. The

face of Tembinok' darkened and he answered nothing. Hesitation in the

question of the well I could understand, for water is scarce on a low

island; that he should refuse to interfere upon a point of cookery was

more than I had dreamed of; and I gathered (rightly or wrongly) that he

was scrupulous of touching in the least degree the private life and

habits of his slaves. So that even here, in full despotism, public

opinion has weight; even here, in the midst of slavery, freedom has a

corner.

Orderly, sober, and innocent, life flows in the isle from day to day as

in a model plantation under a model planter. It is impossible to doubt

the beneficence of that stern rule. A curious politeness, a soft and

gracious manner, something effeminate and courtly, distinguishes the

islanders of Apemama; it is talked of by all the traders, it was felt

even by residents so little beloved as ourselves, and noticeable even in

the cook, and even in that scoundrel's hours of insolence. The king,

with his manly and plain bearing, stood out alone; you might say he was

the only Gilbert Islander in Apemama. Violence, so common in Butaritari,

seems unknown. So are theft and drunkenness. I am assured the experiment

has been made of leaving sovereigns on the beach before the village:

they lay there untouched. In all our time on the island I was but once

asked for drink. This was by a mighty plausible fellow, wearing European

clothes and speaking excellent English--Tamaiti his name, or, as the

whites have now corrupted it, "Tom White": one of the king's

supercargoes at three pounds a month and a percentage, a medical man

besides, and in his private hours a wizard. He found me one day in the

outskirts of the village, in a secluded place, hot and private, where

the taro-pits are deep and the plants high. Here he buttonholed me, and,

looking about him like a conspirator, inquired if I had gin.

I told him I had. He remarked that gin was forbidden, lauded the

prohibition a while, and then went on to explain that he was a doctor,

or "dogstar" as he pronounced the word, that gin was necessary to him

for his medical infusions, that he was quite out of it, and that he

would be obliged to me for some in a bottle. I told him I had passed the

king my word on landing; but since his case was so exceptional, I would

go down to the palace at once, and had no doubt that Tembinok' would set

me free. Tom White was immediately overwhelmed with embarrassment and

terror, besought me in the most moving terms not to betray him, and fled

my neighbourhood. He had none of the cook's valour; it was weeks before

he dared to meet my eye; and then only by the order of the king and on

particular business.