_Jumping a Coral Reef--The Great Wall of the Makatea--Makaia’s Wonderful
Staircases--A Clothing Club of the Pacific--Cool Costumes in Atiu--The
Lands that lie waste--Mystery of a Vanished Tribe--Fashions in
Hair-Dressing--The Sign-Language of the Sex--Invited to a Feast._
MANGAIA, where we next stopped, proved quite an exciting place. You
cannot land upon Mangaia in the ordinary way: the reef that surrounds it
is unbroken, and girdles the whole island in a fortress moat of its own.
The only way to land is to get into one of the numberless native canoes
that crowd about the ship, and let the copper-coloured owner take you
over the reef in his own way, which is the determined and decisive way
of a steeplechaser at a fence. It is most excellent fun and a new thing
in sensations. As the little dug-out--made of nothing more elaborate
than a hollowed mango log, with an outrigger at one side--rushes
shoreward on the crest of a foaming roller, you watch with rather
anxious interest the movements of the dusky boatman, who poises his
paddle in the air, waits, looks, and strikes the water, always at
exactly the right moment--usually when you are just beginning to think
of kicking off your shoes.
There is the reef right in front, a pearly shadow in the blue, with
up-springing spears of ivory, bared like the teeth of a tiger, when the
wave rolls back. Are we going to jump that? We are indeed. The boatman
lifts his paddle--we sweep upwards on the sloping blue satin neck of a
curling wave. No no, that will not do--not this time. He backs water--we
hang on the crest of the wave--but we are not going to be drowned, or
snapped up by the sharks that haunt the reefs, because the boatman is
a born islander, and what he does not know about canoeing over a reef,
neither you nor I need attempt to teach him. Another wave, a monster
this time, swinging us up into the air as if we were a couple of
grasshoppers out paddling in a walnut shell. That will do: here she
goes! The wave roars with us; the wicked white fangs gleam on either
hand: our rough thick keel scrapes agonisingly on the coral, and there
is a smother of foam and tumbling blue and bursting green all about the
cranky little craft. Bump! we have struck--we strike again, but it does
not seem to matter in the least: over we go, and we are in the smooth,
safe, shallow green water inside, and across the reef. And here are a
dozen men of Mangaia, splashing’ about in the lagoon, ready to pick up
the visitor in their powerful arms as soon as the canoe grounds in the
shallow* water, and carry her ashore.
That is how one lands on Mangaia.
[Illustration: 0209]
This island is of a good size, being some thirty mile» in circumference.
Its formation is very notable, being indeed rather celebrated among
geologists. It is supposed to be of volcanic origin, like most of the
“high” islands. From the sea, it looks much like any other place of
the same size. But, going inland, one is astonished to find that a mere
strip of land close round the coast terminates the ground available for
walking on. A high irregular cliff wall, from fifty to a hundred feet in
height, encloses the whole interior of the island, which thus resembles
in shape a very large cup set on a very small saucer. Within the cup lie
all fertile lands, the taro beds, the yam fields, the pineapple patches,
the tangled bush, where cotton used to be grown in the days of the
American war, the low green shrubberies that produce the finest
coffee in the Cook Islands. To reach them, there is only one way--that
furnished by a really wonderful rocky staircase, built in prehistoric
times by the ancestors of the present natives. If one were to find such
a work in any other of the Cook Islands one might regard it as proof
positive of the existence of an older and more industrious race, in the
days before the New Zealand Maori took possession of these lands, and
grew effeminate and idle in the occupying.
But the people of Mangaia, though identical in descent with incurably
indolent and sensual Aitutakians and Raratongans, have been moulded by
their environment to a degree that amounts to an actual difference in
character. The barrier reef has always prevented the free communication
enjoyed by other islands, so that they were able to develop along their
own lines of character, without modification from outside. With an
island that possessed only a limited amount of fertile land, a matchless
fortress in the interior, and a complete barrier about the exterior, it
was a foregone conclusion that the Mangaians should become inhospitable,
reserved, and hard-working, as compared with the prodigally generous
and idle folk of the open and fertile islands. They did so. In the
days before the missions, some sixty years ago, the Mangaians were the
fiercest cannibals in the group, and determinedly hostile to strangers:
nor were they ever as pleasure-loving as the other Cook Islanders.
To-day they are harder in character than the folk of the other islands;
kindly to strangers, but hardly gushing in their reception of them,
and so much more industrious than the Aitutakians or Raratongans that
Mangaian men are sought as servants all over the group.
There is, therefore, no difficulty in understanding how the people of
Mangaia found energy and time to construct the staircases that span the
great wall of “Makatea,” enclosing the inner part of the island. Being
obliged day after day to climb with infinite pains the sharp rocky
heights of the cliff, in order to get from the fishing grounds to the
plantations, they would certainly not be long in devising some means of
lessening this inconvenience. The staircases which are the result
must have taken many years and much labour in constructing, and it is
difficult to understand how a people unacquainted with the use of any
mechanical contrivance could have placed so many large blocks of
stone in the positions which they occupy. The steps are very high and
irregular, and on an extremely torrid afternoon it is not exactly the
walk one would choose for pure enjoyment. However, our time in Mangaia
was short, so I explained to a native girl that I wanted to see
the Makatea, and she at once called up half the village to join the
procession.
Attended, therefore, by my young guide and the inevitable following, I
went up the mighty stairs, and across the tract of level land lying at
the top. It is nearly a mile before one comes upon the cup-like valley
in the centre of the island, so it must be allowed that the rim of the
cup is a thick one. After a pleasant walk through groves of cocoanut and
guava, we came upon the inner side of the wall, and stood on the edge
of a great grey circular cliff, spiked, spired, and towered with
extraordinary eccentricity, and splendidly garlanded with falling
masses of sea-green creeper. At one point, a huge split in the rock
had evidently provided a foundation for the second staircase, which was
rougher than the first, made of great blocks of stone irregularly laid
here and there so as to fill up the split in part, and give a foothold
to the climber. Still, it was a big piece of work, and must have taken
a good many years--generations, perhaps--to complete. Down in the valley
below, which seemed to be two or three miles across, were all the native
plantations and gardens, and as we jumped down from block to block,
we met hard-faced muscular women toiling upwards with heavy loads of
vegetables and fruit. In the taro fields, terraced so as to let a little
stream trickle through and create an artificial swamp, the workers
seemed to be women only. They dug and scraped in the thick mud under the
burning sun, leaving off their tasks long enough to stare and question
a little, and then setting stolidly to work again. The men were probably
out fishing or pigeon shooting. In spite of Christianity, the island
woman always carries the heavy end of the load, where there is one
to carry; the man is the hunter, the woman the labourer and beast of
burden, as in the cannibal times of long ago.
There are some remarkable caves in the island, and I went into them for
a mile or so, in company with the local missionary, who kindly offered
to act as guide.
Caves, however--as most people will allow--are much alike in all parts
of the earth, and there is nothing to differentiate the long, dark,
dripping passages, half-glimpsed halls, gloomy crevasses, and dimly
sparkling stalactite candelabra of a South Sea Island cave, from those
of a cave near Brighton or the Land’s End. There is no need, therefore,
to describe the caves of Mangaia further than to say that they were
quite up to the usual pattern, and that at all events, they gave a touch
of “Swiss Family Robinson” to the island atmosphere that was pleasing to
the imagination.
It had, of course, nothing to do with Mangaia, but I wondered as we
walked back from the caves towards the top of Makatea, how it was that
the interesting shipwrecked people who live in caves as described in
fiction, never seem to be troubled with damp? I have, personally, never
seen a cave--out of a book--that was not first cousin to a showerbath,
and I should be surprised if any One else had. Who ever saw a genuine
cave roof that was not covered with stalactites, large or small? and
what makes stalactites but endless drip? If I were a shipwrecked person,
I should certainly prefer the temporary house the “useful” character
always puts up in half an hour with the aid of four growing trees and
the ship’s mainsail, to the cave that is invariably discovered in
the second chapter. I should know for certain that the former was the
driest--even when it rained.
I cannot leave the subject of the strange Makatea, without telling yet a
little more about it, for it has not often been described or mentioned.
Geologists say that it is the product of a double volcanic upheaval. The
first convulsion threw up the island itself, and, in the course of ages,
the usual encircling reef of coral was built up round it by the busy
coral insects, working under the water. Then came a second upheaval, and
the island and reef together were cast up two hundred feet. The Makatea
is thus the ancient reef that once surrounded the original small island
which is represented by a crown of heights in the middle of the cup of
the crater, and by the sunk-down valley about it. The narrow strip of
land that edges the beach to-day is a later formation.
One cannot mistake the character of the great coral cliff, which is
quite unlike any kind of stone, or indeed anything but itself. The
passing ages have turned it to rock, but to rock which is hollowed in
every direction with caves, small and great, and filled with fossil
shells as a pudding is filled with plums. No unprotected foot can tread
the surface of these heights, which are simply a mass of serried grey
spears, sharp and cruel as the top of a wall protected by broken glass.
The natives, if convenience leads them to cross any part of the Makatea
other than the staircases, usually protect their feet with thick sandals
of woven coir fastened on with cords. One can imagine how much this
peculiar protection must have added to the safety of the interior of the
island, in the old predatory days.
The caves were often used for burying places in time gone by, and it is
only a few years since a “find” of skulls of a type differing in several
particulars from those of the present day, was made in one of the
largest caves by a schooner captain. Rumour says that he sold them for a
good price, but the purchasers were not known.
Another use of the coral caves in the old days (over fifty years ago)
was a shelter for fugitives of various kinds. The Mangaians were not a
pleasant people, in those times, either to strangers or each other.
The outsider was cooked and eaten for the mere offence of presuming to
exist. The Mangaian was never sure that some one who had a spite against
him would not murder him--probably by poison, in the use of which
these people were as expert as the Borgias themselves. Under these
circumstances, the caves were never without their occupants, living in
secret, and creeping out at night to pick up a little food. Many and
romantic are the stories told by the missionaries and traders of these
stirring times, if I had space to relate them.
Mangaia is a beautiful island, but that goes without saying, in the
exquisite Cook Group. It has about half a dozen white people, and the
native population is said to number something under two thousand.
Though a pleasant island and a healthy one, it cannot be recommended
to planters, as there is not an inch of land available for rent. The
natives themselves are keen traders and bargainers, and export much
of their fruit and copra direct to Auckland. Most of what they make is
spent in trade-finery, for which they have an uncontrollable passion.
On Sundays, the churches are a very flower-garden of frippery, the men
turning out in the most brilliant of shirts, ties, and suits, the women
decking themselves in long loose robes of muslin, sateen, or cheap silk,
coloured in the most screaming hues--pea-green, royal blue, scarlet, and
orange being all strong favourites. Their hats, made by themselves out
of silky arrowroot fibre, are often trimmed with the costliest ribbons
and artificial flowers, and even with ostrich plumes to the value of
two or three pounds. It is somewhat puzzling, I was told, to see several
entire families got up in the same extraordinary style, unless you know
the reason, which is, that these various households have joined together
in a club, putting all the money they have made into one purse, and
sending it down to Auckland on their own account for a bale of gorgeous
clothing, all alike. Thus you will see twenty or thirty women, on a
Sunday morning, dressed alike in robes of vermilion satinette, and
wearing huge hats, crowned by three ostrich feathers, red, yellow, and
blue, arranged after the fashion of the Prince of Wales’s crest.
This is one of the clubs, and there are sure to be others that vie with
them in startling attire. Such are the weaknesses--after all, venial
ones indeed--of the sturdy-souled Mangaian.
Atiu was our next stop, and here the reef-jumping process had to be
repeated in another form. The ship’s whale-boat, steered by our captain,
who was the cleverest hand at the big sixteen-foot steer-oar of any
white man I have ever seen, approached the edge of the reef, and danced
about in front of it, until the passengers found an opportunity of
leaping out on to it. Then, rather wetfooted (but no one minded that, in
a temperature like the hot room of a Turkish bath) we were picked up
by natives waiting on the shallow side, and carried through the lagoon,
which was not more than a foot or two deep.
[Illustration: 0217]
On landing, we found a number of the men standing on the shore ready to
receive the Commissioner. They had been fishing, and were clad simply
and coolly in a rag and a feather apiece--the latter worn in the hair,
over one ear. Their dress, however, did not seem to embarrass them
at all, and they came forward and shook hands with every one,’ quite
politely. All the Cook islanders are supposed to be Christianised and
civilised, but in some parts of the group the civilisation, at all
events, seems to be wearing very thin, and this is notably the case
in Atiu, an island rather larger than Raratonga, which has no resident
missionary, save a very conceited and upsetting young native teacher.
The Atiuans were of old a wilder and fiercer race than even the
Mangaians, and such determined cannibals that they used to make raids on
the surrounding islands for the simple purpose of filling their cooking
ovens, and enjoying a mighty feast. Great war canoes, laden with gory
corpses, have many a time been’ drawn up on the very stretch of sand
where we landed, and the grandfathers of the men who greeted us have
sung and danced in fierce exultation to see the fat limbs and well-fed
bodies of their enemies laid in ghastly heaps upon the snowy beach,
ready for the cooking pits that since early morning had been glowing
with flame in anticipation of the banquet.
“Meek-faced Atiuans” was the nickname bestowed upon these islanders, in
derision, by those who knew their wiliness and treachery. There is not
much that is meekfaced about them to-day. They certainly look rougher
and less amiable than any others of the Cook Islanders, and they are by
no means so amiable and easy-going as the Raratongans, Aitutakians, and
people of Mitiaro and Mauke. However, it cannot be said that they are
in any way dangerous, and the stray white people who have lived in the
island (there was only one at the time of my visit) have always got on
well with them. Rough, as I said before, they certainly are. A ring I
wore on my hand attracted the attention of one or two of the men,
and they crowded round, fingered it, and actually tried to snatch--an
attempt very shortly put an end to by the Commissioner, who ordered them
off peremptorily. The incident, although small, illustrates a standard
of manners that one would certainly not encounter in any other part
of the group, or indeed in any one of the Southern or Eastern Pacific
groups that I afterwards saw.
There was a good deal of native-manufactured lime-juice to be got away
here, and the people (most of them more completely dressed than the
party that had received us on the shore) were busy rolling down the
casks into the water, where the out-going tide took them, and floated
them across the reef to the schooner. It seemed a strange way of taking
on cargo, but I learned, afterwards, that it is not uncommon in islands
surrounded by a dangerous reef.
[Illustration: 0225]
The walk up to the settlement proved to be a good three miles, Atiu
being one of the very few islands whose natives do not live down on the
shore. The scenery was fine--wide rich plains covered with low scrub, or
clothed with thick herbage, alternating with heavy forest. There is no
better soil in the islands than that of Atiu. Guavas are a common weed;
pumpkins run wild, trailing their long green vines and heavy fruit
right across the track, mangoes, chestnuts, Pacific cherries, and othér
fruits, grow without care or cultivation. Any tropical product can
be raised, and land is exceedingly cheap. The reef has always been a
handicap to the island; but I heard that a part had been blown up to
admit of a boat passage, some time after my visit, also that the Union
steamers had begun to call for cargoes--an important event in the
history of any island, and one likely to do much for its future.
The people are few in number--only nine hundred--and do not attempt to
use more than a very small portion of the thirty-two square miles of
their territory. Much is available for letting, and every inch of the
island is worth cultivating, although to a stranger’s eye it is hardly
as fertile in appearance as other portions of the Cook Group that are
much less valuable. Coffee, copra, oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes,
could be profitably grown for export. The climate is good and healthy.
The people have not dwindled down to their present small numbers through
natural decay. Like another more famous island, Atiu is “swarming with
absentees.” In the Society Islands, and here and there in other groups,
whole villages full of Atiuans are to-day to be seen, who emigrated from
their native country twenty or thirty years ago, owing to difficulties
with the missionaries, and went to seek an asylum in lands where
strings were drawn somewhat less tightly than they were at home. They
never returned, though the island, when I saw it, had no resident white
missionary at all, and in consequence their lands have lain idle ever
since. The ill wind has blown good to planters and settlers, however, so
one need not quarrel with it.
Like Mangaia, Atiu has a cave--only a much larger one, and it has a
mystery connected with the cave, which no one has yet attempted to
solve.
Sixty years ago or more (I was told--I do not swear to the truth of
this or any other island story that I have not had the opportunity of
investigating in person), an invading tribe came to Atiu, and in the
course of several battles, defeated and put to rout one of the lesser
tribes of the island. The vanquished ones, fearing that they would be
killed and eaten, plucked up courage to try a desperate expedient, and
hid themselves in the cave, into whose dark recesses no native had ever
before ventured, for fear of offending the evil spirits that were said
to live therein. After waiting for a day or two, the enemies gave up the
contest, and went away again. It was now safe for the hunted tribe to
come forth, and the other inhabitants of the island looked to see them
return--for after all, it did not seem likely that the evil spirits
would destroy so many. They waited in vain. From the unknown depths of
the cave--unknown, in its innermost recesses, to the present day--no
sign, no message reached them; no living soul ever came forth of the
many men, women, and children who had braved the dangers of that dark
portal. Lost they were, lost they remained.
What happened to them? No one knows. It is not easy to destroy a whole
tribe, and leave no sign. But the one white man who partly explored the
cave some years ago, found nothing to hint at the nature of the tragedy.
It is true that his candles gave out, and the cord that served him for
a guide back among the endless windings of the place came to an end,
so that he never knew quite how far the place went, or how many
ramifications it had. Still, it is strange enough that not so much as a
single human bone was to be seen. If the tribe had lost their way, and
perished of hunger, some traces would certainly have been visible--a
spear, a shell ornament, perhaps a skeleton. If they had fallen in a
body over some treacherous inner precipice, the dangerous place would
have been discoverable. Perhaps some new explorer will unravel the
mystery, one of these days. It will not be a steamer passenger, however,
for the Union boats on their rare calls do not stay long enough for any
one to land, and the cave requires two clear days to reach and see.
As we were not even stopping overnight ourselves, I had no opportunity
of making an exploration on my own account. Thus the mystery rests
unsolved--unless some one may have come to the island in a stray trading
schooner since my visit, and found time enough to explore the unknown
parts of the haunted cavern. The natives of Atiu, needless to say, put
down the whole thing simply and solely to the revenge of the “local
demons.”
The people of the settlement, when we reached it, greeted our party
with boisterous cheerfulness. The officials went to hold their court, as
usual, and I, being as usual quite uninterested in the details of native
boundary disputes conducted in an unknown tongue, amused myself with the
women of the village. It might be more correct to say that they amused
themselves with me. I do not think any white woman had been up to the
settlement before I visited it, and the curiosity of the girls was
uncontrollable. They crowded round me, they slyly felt my hair to see
if the coils were attached to my head in Nature’s own way (by which I
conclude that the wearing of false hair is not unknown to themselves),
they rubbed my dress material in their fingers, they poked me all over
to see if I was real, and conducted such searching investigations into
the quantity and style of my clothing, that I was obliged to speak to
one or two as sharply as I knew how (the tongue was alien, but the tone
was understood) and make them desist. Withal, they were not ill-natured,
though certainly a little ill-mannered. They did not forget the duties
of hospitality, but pressed fruit and cocoanut water on me, and one
woman insisted on giving me a bottle full of honey to take away--a gift
that was much appreciated by my fellow-passengers on the schooner, later
on.
I gratified them extremely by loosening the hair of one or two, and
putting it up in the latest fashionable style, which proved so popular
that the whole feminine half of the island set to hair-dressing at once,
and before I left the island that day, a general and complete revolution
in coiffure had taken place. We had a good deal of feminine talk among
ourselves, before the men came out again: the fact that I did not know
anything of the language, save perhaps half a dozen words, was no bar to
a certain amount of thought-interchange. How was it done? Signs, for the
most part: scraps, guesses, hints, stray native words made to do double
and treble duty. Could I have talked to the husbands and brothers of
the women in the same way? No, certainly not. All through my wanderings
among the uncivilised folk of the island world, I was constantly
interested and amused to see how quick the women were in the language of
signs and makeshifts, how very uncomprehending the men. If I wanted to
make a request of any kind, on an island where I did not know any of the
language, I instinctively sought for a woman to interpret my signs for a
boat, a guide, a trader’s or missionary’s house, and so forth; and found
that the women understood, almost as surely as the men, under the same
circumstances, did not. Psychologists may make what they like of the
fact. Women, who have talked the “sign-language” to each other, many
and many a time, over the innocent thick heads of their unsuspecting
better-halves, friends, or brothers, will never doubt it. We are not as
clever as men--let the equality brigade shriek if they like, “it’s as
true as turnips is, as true as taxes”--but neither are we as stupid. God
forbid!
I had practically the whole day to put in somehow, so, after the
delights of hair-dressing had palled, and the afternoon was passing on,
I accepted the invitation of a cheerful, though rather rough-looking
pair of girls, whom I found crushing limes for lime juice in a very
primitive sort of hand press, and followed them in to dinner in one of
the native houses.
There was a distinguished guest to be entertained--a woman of Atiu who
had been away from the island with her husband for many months, and had
now returned in the _Duchess_, quite civilised and chic and modern, with
the up-to-dateness of far-away Auckland. This celebrity, regarded as a
very Isabella Bird among the island women, scarce any of whom had ever
seen the other side of their own reef, was seated on the mats when I
entered, her legs folded under her, native fashion; not without evident
discomfort, for the heels of very high-heeled, pointed boots are painful
under such circumstances, and corsets laced to bursting point are
absolutely deadly. Ritia’s dark face was ominously empurpled, and
perspiration due as much to agony as to the heat (which was undeniable)
streamed over her forehead and down, her nose, from under the brim of
her incredible picture hat. But pride upheld her, for who among the
other women of the island owned such magnificent clothes?
The people of the house received me with exultation. Now, the feast
was indeed a gorgeous one, and the sea-green envy sure to be the lot of
every housewife in settlement with whom I had not dined, shed additional
lustre on the triumph. The food was just coming in as I entered and
folded myself up on the mats--roast sucking-pig, smelling very good;
a fat boiled fowl; some fish from the lagoon, baked like the pig in a
ground oven, and done to a turn; arrowroot jelly; young green cocoanuts,
with the meat still unset, clinging to the thin shell like transparent
blanc-mange; breadfruit, smoking and floury; baked pumpkins; bananas,
roasted in their skins; sweet potatoes; chestnuts. A large cocoanut,
picked at the right stage for drinking, stood at each guest’s right
hand, and in the middle was a big bowl of milky cocoanut cream, into
which each guest was supposed to dip his food as he ate.
Plates there were none, but I have never thought clean, fresh, green
leaves, a foot or two across, unpleasant substitutes for delf or china,
which is handled and used by hundreds of eaters, and must be washed in
greasy hot water at the end of every meal. There is a good deal to
be said for the native custom, whether the point of view be that of
convenience, cleanliness, or simple beauty.
I, as the principal guest, was offered everything first, which obviated
any unpleasantness that might have arisen from the entire absence of
knives and forks. There is no hardship in eating with your fingers, if
yours are the first to plunge into every dish, and you have your nice
fresh leaf to yourself. The little pig I did not touch, because no one
who has lived as much as a week in the islands will venture on native
pork, good as it looks and smells. When an unfortunate beast is killed
by strangulation, and never bled, and when you know that it has lived at
its gipsy will, and fed more abominably than a land-crab, you are apt
to find you are “not hungry” when its crackling little carcase comes to
table in cerements of green leaves, and you ask for the breadfruit and
the fish instead.
The feast seemed likely to go on all afternoon, since no native thinks
he has eaten enough, on such an occasion, until he is as gorged and as
comatose as a stuffed anaconda. There is no obligation to stay longer
than one likes, however, so I washed my hands and withdrew, as soon as
it seemed good to me to do so.
And by the way, if we of the civilised countries think that we invented
fingerbowls, either in form, or in use, we are mistaken. The South
Seas invented them, a few hundred years before we found out they were
necessary to our own delicate refinement. A bowl full of water is handed
round to every diner in a South Sea house. The water is from the river,
pure and fresh; the bowl is of a mould more perfect than the most
exquisite models of ancient Greece, delicately hued with pale brown in
the inner part, and deep sienna brown outside. It is half a cocoanut
shell--beautiful, useful, practically unbreakable, yet not of sufficient
worth to prevent its being thrown away to-morrow and replaced by a fresh
one from the nearest palm. Fresh plates and cups for one’s food are a
refinement that our refined civilisation has not attained to yet. You
must go to savages to look for them.
I thanked my hosts for their entertainment, in good English, when I
left. They understood the words and tone almost as clearly as if I had
spoken in their own language, and gave me a ringing salutation that
followed me down the road. That a number of Atiuan men, coming up from
the shore, burst out laughing when they saw me, and held on to each
other in convulsions of merriment at the sight of my absurd white face
and ridiculous clothes, did not detract from the real kindliness of
the reception the island had given me. The manners of the Atiuan would
certainly throw a Tahitian or a courtly Samoan into a fit; but for
all that, he is not at bottom a bad sort, and could certainly be made
something of with training.
One of the Arikas of Atiu--a woman again: there seemed to be very few
male chiefs in the islands--was pointed out to me as I went down to
the shore, and I photographed her sitting in her chair. She looked
dignified, and her long descent was visible in the pose of her small
head, and the delicacy of her hands, but she did not possess much claim
to beauty.
[Illustration: 0249]
The _Duchess_ was standing off and on outside the reef when I came out
on the beach again, and the barrels were merrily floating out, rolled
down into the water by the hands of bu§y brown men and women. It was a
pretty scene in the low yellow sunlight of the waning afternoon,’ and
I carried it away with me, long after we had sailed; as a pleasant
recollection of Atiu.