This is Moetia’s and Marau’s translation, I do not know whose copy it is—Moetia’s or Marau’s. I got it from the latter. This song of reproof, cherished by the Teva, as a protest against fate, explains how the dissensions among the different branches of the eight clans allowed them to become a prey to the rising power of the Purionu clans, headed by Pomaré, the son of one of those Ahurai princes whose blood ran into the sand near where the great marae of Oberea was built, as I have told you a little further back. The vicissitudes of wars, the changes brought about by the influence of the foreigner, all of which worked in favour of the Pomaré, culminated in a final struggle in December, 1815. The partisans of the old order, both social and religious, were headed by Opufara, the brother of Tati, the Chief of Papara. On the other side were the partisans of Pomaré, the Christians, the white men and their guns. To accentuate still more the character of the contest, the final battle began on a Sunday, the attack being made by the pagans during the service which Pomaré attended. As in mediæval times, in our own history, the Christians did not begin the fight until the conclusion of the prayers in which they were engaged. On the other side the inspired prophets who guided the pagans urged them to predicted victory. The cannon of the Christians checked the fierce onslaught of the men of Opufara; though for a short time their courage had seemed to prevail, and Opufara fell first, at the head of his men. He urged them bravely to continue the fight, and at least to avenge his death, and the struggle continued long enough for him to see their brave resistance to the superior advantages of the guns in their enemies’ hands. But the end came, as we can well imagine, and Opufara drew his last breath as he saw the utter rout of his clan and their supporters.

For the first time in Polynesian warfare Pomaré stopped the massacre about to begin, and promised peace and pardon to all who should submit.

His friends, as well as his enemies, realized, in their astonishment, the enormous difference brought in by the new faith. This clemency did as much as actual power to win over those defeated. Most all men submitted to the new great chief, to the new religion; the maraes were destroyed, the image of the god Oro, a palladium long fought over, the cause of cruel wars, was burned; the people turned to Christianity, and the old order was completely broken up, carrying with it the power of the chiefs on which, unfortunately, the social system was based; because this power was more intimately connected with religious awe and belief than with military supremacy.

Had I more time, I should have liked to describe more fully the details of what I have only indicated. The whole story of the years between the decadence of Oberea’s control and Pomarés triumph is full of meaning to the Teva. With our clan, Opufara is still a representative of its courage and its pride. With no little feeling does Queen Marau urge me, when I return to Paris, to seek out the omare or club of the great Chief Opufara, preserved perhaps yet in the Musée des Souverains. In the Museum at Sydney in Australia, among the fragments and samples of cloth and dresses collected by Captain Cook, I shall perhaps find some bits of the garments of Oberea.

Saturday, June 6th at Sea.

Wednesday was to be our last day. We had decided to join the steamer chartered by us for Fiji not on its arrival but later at Hitiaa on the opposite southeastern coast of the island, partly to see the other side of the island, partly to say good-bye to Tati who would load our steamer with oranges.

We were to leave at noon for our drive around the island and there were to be prayers that day in all the churches against the illness now afflicting the island. The King was ill; our chiefess wished her family to be present at church. Before the breakfast to which we were asked, she bade us good-bye as she proposed to return to church: they have a way there of spending the day off and on—the natives—as we remembered at Tautira.

She drank our healths and made us a little speech, having kissed Tauraatua, and holding our hands in her soft palms, she wished us again good-bye. She was very dignified and simple. Nothing could have been simpler or more touching. As I remember, she wished us the usual safe journey home and health and “hoped that we might return, where, if we did not find her, we should at least find her children.” After that we had a long and cheerful breakfast with the remaining family, and then we drove away around the coast to Hitiaa which we reached in the early evening.

The drive, though a rough one, was beautiful; of course we could not see inland the high mountains and deep valleys, except when on one occasion we crossed a wide river and valley and could look back. But we skirted the sea everywhere, and our road ran between the cliffs, every few rods making new and exquisite pictures of sea and trees and rocks, and of waters running to the sea. I do not know if this side of the island be finer, all is so lovely in detail, but it is bolder and more rocky. I thought, as we drove along and had passed Point Venus, how well chosen had been Bougainville’s name of Nouvelle Cythere, for we were on his side of the island. The feminine beauty of the landscape and its “infinite variety” completed the ideal of a place where woman was most kind.

The charm of the day closed in our arrival at Hitiaa where we were to pass the night—in a little village of pretty huts set in cleanly order, in a grove of high bread-fruit trees. All was green even to the road, except a few spaces in front of houses, neatly pebbled. In the shade were the figures of Tati and of our hosts, coming to meet us—all in light colours, white, blue, red, and yellow, making a picture that might have done for a Watteau. We dined out on the green right by the shore, where the surf broke a few feet from us. The air was sweet with odours, and cool. It was pleasant to be with Tati again and hear his laugh, something like Richardson’s, whom he resembles in size as well as in many little matters. But I know that I said this before.

We slept in a cleanly native hut, of the usual style, a long thatched building, lifted on a stone base with a floor, and sides made of rods like a cage, but with European doors. At either semi-circular end, muslin was hung along the walls so as to exclude the light and to protect a little from draught. Each end had a curtain drawn across it, so that one’s bed was enclosed, but our host and hostess watched us to the last with unabated kindness. Everything was scrupulously clean. The next morning was like the evening. Blue clouds blown over a pink sky, all far above us, for all the trees rose high and we moved about from shade to shade. Tati had driven away before daylight to put oranges on board. The village was very silent, as if deserted. We spent the morning in idleness; walked to the great Tamanu trees at the end of the village of which Tati had told us when he tried to find words for the impression of solemnity which European Cathedrals had made upon him. The trees are like great oaks, but rise with a great sweep before branching. Right by the road is a cluster of them with great roots, all grown together in a lifted mass. We sat idly by the sea and looked at Taiarapu all in blue, and at the sea between us and our little Tautira also all blue, which we shall never see again. Men, on the inside reef alongside, were fishing, standing patiently in the water.

Over us, stretching far and touching the water at places, spread the great Tamanu trees. We sat there in their shade. The water came up to my feet and washed out my drawings in the sand, as memories of things are effaced.

It was pleasant to be absolutely idle, listening to the soft noise of the tide rolling minute pebbles on the sand, looking at its edges fringed with bubbles, that folded one over the other like drapery, and watching the wet fade smoothly off the shore.

The trade wind blew strong. The air was very cool. Mrs. Tati gave us breakfast with a smile of welcome and iorana, and little Tita flirted with us.

Then I slept; and waking determined to have some record of this our last day, and sat again on the shore, and made a note of Taiarapu across the water on which the rainbow played. Near me the surf ran in rapidly on the shallows, all in blue shade; the Tamanu’s branches above me were reflected in the motion—and underneath the trees, boys paddled in and out, in their little boats without outriggers, using their hands for paddles, so that as they swung their arms they looked as if swimming hand over hand. It was still very cool, and I felt that I had probably exposed myself to what is the danger of this place at this time. It can be so cool after heat, and so damp with such draughts that I do not wonder at the constant colds and troubles of the lungs that I have noticed. I should call it a lovely climate—and an exquisite climate—but not one for a pulmonary patient. Now I am astonished that Piri’s doctors sent her back here.

In the evening we had Tati again at dinner and talked with him about his perhaps coming over in ’93, Exposition time, and about the correctness of his sister’s translations of poetry. We tried in vain to get some love songs, though he promised to send some to me later, but he told us stories of Turi, famous for prowess in love—the Arabian love of the South Seas—also of the tradition of an isle inhabited by women only, such as is told of on the farther shores of the Pacific, and such as Ariosto wrote of; and some anecdotes, not to their credit, of Pomaré the great or his father Teu, some of the scandalous scenes of which had been enacted not far from there, and had been commemorated in the names of the rivers. “But perhaps after all,” Tati said, “they were no worse than other chiefs who lived before them, for as they all had unlimited power that power led them to many excesses.”

The next morning we arose to find the little steamer some three miles off. Perhaps there were fewer rocky ledges upon our path nor did we see the olive gray mist of the aito trees (iron wood) against the blue sea, or the shining wet rocks. But otherwise it was like a continuation of the ride of the day before, a dragging through grassy, wet roads, and plunging into small streams, where coral rocks whitened the clear grey bottom. A very few people nodded to us as we passed. I suppose that most every one was engaged at the packing of the oranges further away; orange trees filled the roads, the peel of oranges in long, yellow spirals, dotted the grassy edges of the rivers hear the huts. Small black pigs scampered and tore away into the “brush” on either side, where in a hollow of the road undisturbed by our passing so close, old Eumaeus the swine-herd crouched alongside of his black hogs who ate savagely what he had provided. And again we came to such a place as we had seen on our drive of Wednesday, something never noticed elsewhere by us, where some ledge of rock came up toward the sea, leaving only a narrow passage. There a little wicker fence had been built across the road resting against the rock on one side and the trees on the slope below; and there we opened a gate, as if all this lovely land had been but some domain, and had been set out in its beauty of arrangement by skilful hands, to please owners who lived perhaps inland, behind the vague spaces of forest trees, or up the hazy valleys. All that was wanting to the idyl was what we had seen before, red bunches of wild bananas brought down from the mountains and hung on bamboo poles or left supported by branches and roots, on the wayside, along with heaps of cocoanuts half hidden in grassy hollows, giving the idea that other owners and gatherers had but just placed them there while they went off for a moment; for a plunge into cool water perhaps, after the hard toil of the carrying.

Tati has explained to us how that really the owners were not far away, but that afraid at our coming or at that of others they were concealed. It was what is called their consciences, or rather what the French have subtly called “le respect humain,” that drove these good people into concealment behind pandanus or orange trees. That day that we drove away, leaving our dear chiefess go to church, was all through the country, apparently, a church holiday, and no one having gone to the mountains for such worldly things as banana food wished to be seen at work, when all were apparently moving to and from the churches, clad in brightest garments, and looking like the lilies of the field.

But this morning, like yesterday, was a day of work; and soon we saw along the shore and drove past it, a very long shed, with shining thatch, and with hanging curtains of matted palm, where were many people, men, women and children, who had been packing oranges and now were resting and eating. The place was as joyous and full as the previous land had been solitary; work had stopped, the last boxes of oranges were being taken to the ship in double canoes, that is to say, two canoes joined together by an upper planking or deck of canes. On one of these with our luggage, we also embarked—the ropes that were fastened to the trees on shore to steady the steamer, were loosened, the anchors lifted, and with a good-bye to Tati we were off. That afternoon we saw little of the island lost in cloud until we turned the corner of Point Venus, and looked up the gorges that led toward the Aorai. Then soon we were in Papeete and could go ashore and watch the packet from San Francisco just sailing in behind us, and try to say good-bye again. Again I felt the curious twinge of parting, again Ori’s wife Haapi kissed my hands. The late afternoon flooded the island and the clouds half covering it with a dusty haze of yellow light. The sea tossed fresh and blue as if lit by another sky. We passed the fantastic peaks and crags of Moorea, seen for the first time on its other side and wrapped above in the scud of the trade winds blowing in our favour. So in a gentle sadness the two islands faded into the dark; the end of the charm we have been under—too delicate ever to be repeated.

There I thought, five hundred years ago, I was young, happy and famous, along with Tauraatua.

If only when I received my name and its associations I could have been given the memories of my long youth; the reminiscence of similar days spent in an exquisite climate, in the simplest evolution of society, in great nearness to Nature, that I might find comfort in those recollections against the weariness of that civilized life which is to surround my few remaining years.

D. M.
Oberea
S
Posuit
Teraitua

TAHITI TO FIJI

I had been suffering very much from my ancient enemy, sciatica, which declared itself almost as soon as we left Tahiti, and has kept me in pain up to this moment. But I managed to get ashore, and to take a long walk along the pretty road that goes around the island. We called on the Resident, Mr. Moss who took us to see the Queen or Chiefess Makea, for whom we had a letter from Queen Marau. She was the usual tall, smiling Polynesian chiefess, pleased at the addresses of her letter, which made her out a queen, as she showed to the Resident. For I gathered in the careless accidents of conversation, she had been lately elected chiefess by a parliament composed of representatives of the islands who are supposed to have federated for a general government. But Makea is a chiefess of great descent, being straight from Rarika, one of the two chiefs who years ago met here, one of them coming from Tahiti, the other from Samoa; one driven away, the other in exploration; and who colonized the islands, and in the persons of their descendants fought for supremacy down to this date. So that it is something that this representative of one descent should have been agreed upon. Many of these traditions have been recorded by the Rev. W. W. Gill in his “Myths and Songs from the South Pacific”; though his book refers particularly to Mangaia which is a neighbouring island about one hundred miles distant.

“Yes,” said the Queen, “Moni Gill.” She had seen his book and proposed to make some corrections. Money Gill, he was nicknamed because he was so fond of money. Let me add that I also understood that the gentleman was generous enough and not mean.

The missionaries have had complete control all this time; and yet things “laissent à désirer,” as the French have it. There has been a system of “government,” as Mr. Moss rather ironically sounded the name. There had been one hundred policemen in this little island of Rarotonga. Each policeman was a deacon, and the punishment of everything was a fine; the fines being pooled together and divided afterward.

Many deeds were fined and punished that were innocent or excusable, but all the fining had not in these thirty years increased the chastity of the women. Though the reports of the missions do not carry out this fact, the individual missionaries admit it, and what weakening of real authority has resulted one can only guess.

Some years ago the missionaries objected to smoking. To-day our missionary on board has a cigar or pipe in his mouth most of the time. In those years Makea was fined and excommunicated for smoking a cigarette. Being driven out she became reckless, and I am “credibly informed,” drank and “even danced.” And so her example stood in the way, and the missionary came back to her and begged her to return and be disexcommunicated, even if she should smoke; so that at least others should not have her precedent for dancing. But she refused. How it all ended I should have liked to remain to inquire, of her or the Resident, but the steamer waits not, and I only get these queer little bits of information by chance hearing. But you know that I believe that one gets a good deal from such trifles. I find the British Resident cheerfully hopeful of getting these people under some shape of government other than the kind of thing they had which cannot last. He took us to the building which is a schoolhouse and Parliament house, and we heard a little of what he was doing to get them to regulate matters in some shape that can serve as a basis. But you can imagine what little difficulties come up when those of the neighbouring island, whose chiefess Namuru I saw at the Queen’s, had sent word in their innocence that they had fined a Chinaman for complaining to her and writing what they called a lying letter. In their Polynesian simplicity (and they are shrewd enough) they had forgotten that in an interview they had admitted all and given the Resident every detail.

But there is no doubt that everywhere, the native churchmen, put up to the use of arbitrary authority, will do many queer things—things that everybody knows of through all the South Seas, so that there is no need of detailing them. They suffer, too, from having but one book, the Bible, which (especially the Old Testament) they know by heart, and where they can easily find a precedent for anything they may choose. They might get ideas from other books, but then they would have to learn English, etc. “What then will happen?” say the missionaries. “Do you see these good people reading Zola?” Their conduct is somewhat Zolaish at times, but then it is carried out in their own language. Hence much objection to teaching them English or anything that might lead to danger. It is the old trouble that missionaries have always found—more especially if they were obliged by principle to suppose that they might have some liberty of choice. The position is a hard one. I saw the expression of the missionary’s wife when another hinted under his breath that perhaps the Catholic Sisters might be allowed to come and teach. Such an extremity, however, would blow things sky-high; and if it be necessary that there be education, perhaps the missionaries will consent rather than see the enemy bring it. The English protectorate has only lately been established, and naturally all these questions are fresh.

We took away with us the next day one of the missionaries, his wife and four children, who fill up quite a little corner of our little boat. The scene at their leaving was very pretty—as far as the apparent devotion of the native women who had charge of the children. They kissed their arms and legs, and so humbly the hands of the missionaries, with such an appealing look for answer. They are pretty young people, our clerical friends—the wife Irish, I should say—and are interesting as types. The poor little lady has been ill all the time, but I can see that even then she has a will of her own. The care of the small baby has devolved on the husband missionary, who has some trouble. The children are wild, good natured and Polynesian and sing hymns with the Polynesian accent and cadence, occasionally bursting out in a cheerful laugh when they have apparently hit it successfully.

We have a French captain of artillery who is leaving Tahiti for Noumea (New Caledonia) and who tells me things of his expedition in the Chinese war and the taking of Formosa; also a Tahitian judge on furlough, who confirms what I have seen of the oral claims to land through genealogies committed to memory, the authenticity of which he has to leave to his native associates on the bench to decide.

This afternoon we pass two little islands, Onga-Onga and Onga Hapai, uninhabited; to which people come at certain seasons to make a little copra. They seem lost and without relation, for we do not understand the ocean bottom that would make all rational. Near them, and some five miles from us, a long line thicker in the middle, is the new island thrown up some five years ago or so, of which Mr. Baker, premier of Tonga, gave us an account. He had visited the place while the eruption of mud was still active, had come quite close to it, even nearer than was safe, for the wind came near forcing him within range of the explosion. He has related it in a little pamphlet.

“This perhaps,” says Adams “was the beginning of an atoll, a mud eruption, spreading out like this one under the sea, a surface upon which the coral started.” We had seen in the morning of our second day out, a “low” island, Mauki—a low mass upon which any elevation counted—but it was a mere mass of grey-green upon violet and blue, in the twilight of that day, so that we did not make it out at all. The island besides has no outside lagoon like a true atoll, but a fresh-water lake inside; so that we have not yet seen an atoll.

The little volcanic islands, perhaps both belonging to one crater, are edges of its walls still standing, and a long ledge that runs to meet some projecting wall or dyke, may either belong to the side of the crater, or may it be a raised beach? Adams looks carefully through the glass, but there is too much haze. The little islands grow smaller and smaller as I write—little patches of sharp shape, of a fleshy violet on the clouded blue of sea and sky. It is late evening. The wind, which has been unfavourable, seems to veer a little. We have been unfortunate: the trades that should have blown steadily have almost deserted us, but we are fortunate to have a steamer. And all through we have felt cold, though not officially, that is to say, at midday the thermometer marks from 80 to 83.

Monday, June 15th.

Still fine weather, blue sea, blue sky; some little islands—the end of a chain of reefs and islands Onga Fiki appears in the horizon and promises us arrival for to-morrow.

The passengers are more cheerful, the children less feverish. The little missionary lady plays on the piano and sings a hymn, the Judge leaning over her.

The Captain “profite de son dernier jour pour perfectionner” his English, and bewails with me the unreasonableness of English or British pronunciation. “Why,” says he, “does the steward say ‘am,’ for ‘ham,’ I suppose, for he can’t mean anything else, and why does he say there is much ‘hair’ when the wind blows? French seems more logical.” I comfort him as best I can, but he no doubt has a hard time before him.

More islands to the northwest, and later at night we shall make others, and to-morrow be at Suva of Fiji; unless we run on some reef, but the captain has been here before—some ten years ago, it is true.

FIJI

Each of the five spots we have disembarked at has had a distinct character, more distinct now that we compare them, and nothing could be further, in its small way, from the other small way of Tahiti: ancient, provincial, French, sad and charming as the setting of some opera-comique that I have never seen, but should have liked to invent. Here everything was brisk and clear and promising, as if typical of the promise of something, while Papeete of Tahiti held the remains of some former system of government and business.

Little schooners with sails set were anchored in the harbour; a three-masted ship and H. R. M. S. Cordelia gave importance to the scene. Steam launches plied about. On the wharf, East Indian coolies, turbaned and draped, were grouped with their women in great white draperies or in bold colours, all yellow and all green, or in one case with a violet sari edged with light blue, and a gown of dark blue edged with the same; all these gracious folds thrown out in great masses when they moved, so that even far as we were one could see the movement of the limbs. There are now, I was told when I asked, some seven thousand of the East Indian people in these islands; for the Fijians are Polynesians and work little. So that as elsewhere, the growth of sugar or cotton, or in fact anything requiring continuous care and some exertion, cannot be carried on without the outsider—East Indians, Chinese, Japanese, or Melanesian from other islands.

The first Fijians came up to us almost at once in the boat of the pilot; dark chocolate figures with great shocks of hair standing out, yellowed with lime as in Samoa. They resembled our Samoan friends more than any we have seen yet, notwithstanding great differences. There was a certain likeness—something in the expression and in the make of the face; only so far as these few hours give me, the look is browner.

They seem more military, more masculine; all this impression intensified by our reminiscences of Tahiti just left behind us, where the healthy good humour of Samoa seemed to fade into sadness and into a refinement that appeared feminine. Fine strapping fellows in red sulus (sulu is the same as the lava-lava of Samoa or pareu of Tahiti—the loin drapery), and red-edged, white sleeveless shirts, pulled the Governor’s gig that came out to fetch us. After landing and being driven up to the Governor’s house, we found a sentinel draped with the sulu, and naked to the waist, with a straight sword and belt and his musket, pacing in front of the verandah. I believe it was owing to his great shock of yellow hair, like a grenadier’s cap, that he looked completely dressed and most decidedly a soldierly figure. He or another is now walking up and down in front of me as I write, and at night, at the relief watch, I know by the deep voices that he is still there, and that I can sleep safely, as safely as if he were not there—and all the more that his gun is empty. The servants also about the house, probably the same men, wait upon us with this simple splendour; and hand out the dishes with outstretched arm, “from the shoulder,” and keep up, for me, a military look.

The Governor, Sir John Thurston, has kindly invited us to take up quarters with him. Lady Thurston and the family are away, so that we are but few people in the long, rambling building. It is beautifully placed on a slight height, at the edge of the town, and faces the bay and the long line of mountains of the opposite side. There are large grounds with grassy roads, and the beginnings of a large garden which the Governor is setting out with great success. From it already he has been able to supply plants of the finest Trinidad cocoa, which I see growing in little tubs of bamboo, which when again set out will simply rot away and leave the plant acclimated. However, I do not purpose to make out a list. What might interest you is that the garden follows a line of moats, once belonging to a fortified town which was here, so that it has quite a look of meaning in its picturesqueness. This is the first recognizable trace that we have yet seen of the fortified place protected by ditches. We have seen walls built up in places for forts, or arrangements of timbers and stones of a momentary character, such as those in Samoa; but here the laying out of the lines seems to have been determined with some engineering intelligence, and the space covered implies ground convenient enough for residence. However, we shall see later, we hope, something more of such remains, and understand them better. Meanwhile we are at peace: no more war has been noticed than the cricket match and lawn tennis games that we saw yesterday afternoon. We have about us decidedly, protection, and something that I have not had for a little while, some young Britishers. There is something very soothing to me about them, when I like them at all. In fact, if this continues, we shall feel as if we had simply reëntered “civilization” and be completely spoiled. The conversation of Sir John is very interesting and instructive; for he is not an amateur in his line, though by the by, he photographs very prettily.

Suva, Sunday, June 21st.

On Thursday afternoon we accompanied Sir John on a little trip up the big river Rewa which lies to the east from here. This steam launch carried us over the shallow bar, inside the reef into the broad river which has a rapid current, owing to the tide that runs up far enough for the breakwater to reach some twenty-five miles. The river has also a considerable incline, but the statement made us without guarantees, seemed excessive—fifty feet in those twenty-five miles. The land was low on either side, a great delta, and only occasionally could we see the mountains and hills in the distance. The banks were high, cut by the river, and knobby at spots where the harder clay remaining from the washings made little lumps or eminences. At first we met the mangrove swamps, then by and by banana and cocoanut, and visible here and there bread-fruit outlines against the sky. Then there was not water enough, though the launch draws but one foot, and even with that little had touched at the bar; so that we landed and walked a little way to Rewa the village or town that we were bound for. A pretty little clayey road, like a causeway, better than any in Samoa; plantations and houses from place to place; natives under the trees turned out for the great event of the Governor’s visit; here and there in shady corners groups of young men, putting on the final touches of the decorations in which they were to appear later: red and black paint, great bunches of tappa about them and girdles of black fao, as in Samoa, and titis of white streamers and of many plants. Then we came to a sort of stockade, the compound of the chief, and stepped over his gate, as usual, some stakes planted in the ground, waist high, with a stepping one outside; not in our white ideas a dignified mode of entrance. Inside a pretty arrangement of trees and buildings, with that usual charm that I have wearied you with, of looking as if arranged for effect, while most probably placed merely for most convenience; like that picturesqueness which accompanies our old farms and which seems opposed to most modern things with us. We turned around the main house, and sat down upon mats spread out in front of the river; passing first through two little groups of natives and led by the chief, to whom we were introduced in turn after the captain of the Cordelia. Then a chief or personage of importance addressed the messenger or herald of the Governor, who sat in front of us on the grass, profiled against the river, and with certain forms, presented to him some whale’s teeth tied together, upon which, apparently, everything was to depend. They were accepted, both these gentlemen curled up on the ground and the officer sidled up in what I suppose is due form. Then after a very short speech of the briefest kind, we were led to the big house for kava and we entered on one side, walking up the long plank—and passed through doors of heavy timber, ornamented with sennit in patterns and found a big room covered with many mats, soft and bed-like to the foot. There we sat at the upper end, a little raised and on more mats. At the other end of the one long room were the notables. The chief sat on one side near us; as guests we had his place. Between the two groups a long rope with ends of clustered shells was then laid at right angles to us. This was to mark the division, said my informant, and to enable any one who came late to find his due place. At one end of the rope the Governor’s herald in jacket and yappa sulu, at the other, the young men making the kava (here called yangona), in an enormous bowl. Meanwhile certain persons chanted something, with much swaying and pointing of hands and various gestures, like a rather solemn siva. Among the singers was the next important chief, who led the chant. The singing was the usual Polynesian cadence, stopping abruptly; and after several chants, between which, silence reigned, kava had become ready and was applauded and then poured out. For the first time since Mataafa’s visit I saw the use of the Great Chief’s Cup. The Governor’s herald handed him his own cup, into which the kava bearer poured a part. Then upon the Governor’s drinking and throwing down his bowl, a groan of approval came from the crowd before us. The same for the English Captain (Grenville); the same for Tauraatua and myself—who had the honour of drinking out of the “chiefy” bowl. For others the larger, common bowl was filled; an advantage or not, as one might like to have more or less of the stuff—which on the whole I think I like: that is to say, that one gets accustomed to it, and that it has a clean taste and seems to brace one a little. But evidently the kava here and in Samoa is not the kava of Tahiti, described by Tati, so powerful that such a drink as our little bowl of yesterday held, would have stupefied us surely. That ceremony over, a short speech was made, very different from the long orations of the Samoan tulafale. It was answered by the herald and the meeting was over. Then we walked out of the chief’s compound to the open space, where a dance was to be given. We sat under a canopy of mats, comfortably out of the sunlight that filled the open space edged on one side, between trees, by a long building quite high, with many doorways, all high up in the wall windows. This is a guest house, divided by posts into partitions that serve for each party of travellers. As they arrive they take up such a division for their use. Between it and the next is a narrower one occupied by a hearth, serving the parties on both sides with the economical fire that all other people than white people make. There, when they are settled the village sends them the necessary food.

Outside of this big building sat a crowd of many women, while only one woman sat near us, probably some relative of the chiefs who were near us. To the right, in a long halfcircle, a mass of children, most of them nude to the waist, beneath and in front of a little bunch of trees. Then when all was quiet, in trooped the chorus, who sat down in front of us in a confused circle, added to on the edges by occasional late comers. A few were nude and adorned with leaves. Many of them held in their hands bamboo sticks cut to different lengths and of differing sizes. These struck upon the ground gave a series of sounds according to their length and thickness—a most primitive music and a most impressive one. Had we heard this in surroundings untouched by the European, we should no doubt have felt more keenly the extreme archaic rudeness of the method. With this was mingled the chant of the others, the usual Polynesian chant. At length, to our left, having come up behind us, appeared a mass of men, armed with clubs, ten abreast and about fifteen in file; an orderly phalanx, keeping step to the music with that marvellous accuracy that everywhere indicates the Polynesian sensitiveness to time in sound. They scarcely advanced, merely moving in place, first upon one foot, then upon another, until some change in the music started them off briskly toward the other end of the arena. The big yellow masses of their hair stood out like grenadiers’ caps, and around their heads. Dragging to the ground almost, were long veils or strips of white tappa, looking like bridal veils. White flowers were fastened in the hair; great armlets of leaves about the upper arms; collars of beads and hanging circles of breastplate, with great titis (Samoan name for the ornamental

girdle) of white and green, stuck out or swung about them. They wore usually dark black waist hangings like the black fao mats of Samoa; though here and there black tappa served for the drapery, and was gathered about their waists in enormous folds: in general a great “symphony of black and white,” with strong accents here and there of faces, necks and hands painted with velvety black of soot. When they had marched to the other end of the open space they began their dances, keeping time with extreme care, but making motions of attack and defence all together. Then breaking their order, the centre took one line of attitudes and movements, and the flanks another, even to crouching low down and waiting while the centre advanced and came back. It was a splendid, warlike, barbarous spectacle, our first sight of a complete military dance; for the Samoan that we had seen was more the representation of a real advance of barbarian warriors. To this succeeded other dances of like kind, as our first dancers belonging to the place, were succeeded by others belonging to adjacent districts.

The leader of the first corps came up to us, threw down his club before the Governor, and sat down beside us panting and perspiring. He was a big handsome man, redolent with cocoanut oil, the son of one of the chiefs, and had once on a time been at school in Sydney, where he had learned other weaknesses besides those that come from education. Next to him in front of us, as usual, sat the Governor’s “herald” (native name Matafamea) representative of an office hereditary in certain families; and took charge of the applause, calling aloud “Vinaka!” which means good; to which the Governor sometimes added, “Vinaka sala,” very good. And it was very good. Not only did we have club dances, but also dances with spears, extremely long spears, made to shake and tremble like the “long shadow casting spear” of the Iliads; while sometimes the warriors stood all motionless, crouched or poised, or leaning with the other arm upon their clubs. Finally the last cohort came down in a mass, the front rank waving great fans and bending to the right and left, while the main body of the men brandished their spears above them. To add to the confusion of sight of the looker-on many had their faces painted not only in black but in vivid red, so that one would feel that a certain surprise and astonishment might well attend their appearance and attack. Things of the kind taken by themselves seem useless, but seen in real use, the motives that have brought them about unfold, and one can see for instance how the painting of the face makes a mask behind which the intentions or purposes lie concealed and in ambush. When all this was over the crowd melted away, and we walked back to the chief’s