'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 ward.  '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 an 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 reposes, 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 dramatic 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 -

[Musical notation which cannot be produced.  It means two/four time
with quaver, quaver, crotchet repeated for three bars.]

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 with 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 bright 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 on 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 everyday 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 mean time 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 in
putting them together.  It was no want of 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 IV:  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, all 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.  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.