from different Melanesian islands, communicated with other natives

throughout the cruise, transmitted orders, and sometimes jested

together on the fore-hatch. But what struck me perhaps most of all

was a word I heard on the verandah of the Tribunal at Noumea. A

case had just been heard--a trial for infanticide against an ape-

like native woman; and the audience were smoking cigarettes as they

awaited the verdict. An anxious, amiable French lady, not far from

tears, was eager for acquittal, and declared she would engage the

prisoner to be her children's nurse. The bystanders exclaimed at

the proposal; the woman was a savage, said they, and spoke no

language. 'Mais, vous savez,' objected the fair sentimentalist;

'ils apprennent si vite l'anglais!'

But to be able to speak to people is not all. And in the first

stage of my relations with natives I was helped by two things. To

begin with, I was the show-man of the Casco. She, her fine lines,

tall spars, and snowy decks, the crimson fittings of the saloon,

and the white, the gilt, and the repeating mirrors of the tiny

cabin, brought us a hundred visitors. The men fathomed out her

dimensions with their arms, as their fathers fathomed out the ships

of Cook; the women declared the cabins more lovely than a church;

bouncing Junos were never weary of sitting in the chairs and

contemplating in the glass their own bland images; and I have seen

one lady strip up her dress, and, with cries of wonder and delight,

rub herself bare-breeched upon the velvet cushions. Biscuit, jam,

and syrup was the entertainment; and, as in European parlours, the

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