affect the result. It was impossible the captain should withstand

this partiality of fortune; and with his fall the prosperity of the

Marquesas ended. Anaho is truly extinct, Taahauku but a shadow of

itself; nor has any new plantation arisen in their stead.

CHAPTER XIII--CHARACTERS

There was a certain traffic in our anchorage at Atuona; different

indeed from the dead inertia and quiescence of the sister island,

Nuka-hiva. Sails were seen steering from its mouth; now it would

be a whale-boat manned with native rowdies, and heavy with copra

for sale; now perhaps a single canoe come after commodities to buy.

The anchorage was besides frequented by fishers; not only the lone

females perched in niches of the cliff, but whole parties, who

would sometimes camp and build a fire upon the beach, and sometimes

lie in their canoes in the midst of the haven and jump by turns in

the water; which they would cast eight or nine feet high, to drive,

as we supposed, the fish into their nets. The goods the purchasers

came to buy were sometimes quaint. I remarked one outrigger

returning with a single ham swung from a pole in the stern. And

one day there came into Mr. Keane's store a charming lad,

excellently mannered, speaking French correctly though with a

babyish accent; very handsome too, and much of a dandy, as was

shown not only in his shining raiment, but by the nature of his

purchases. These were five ship-biscuits, a bottle of scent, and

two balls of washing blue. He was from Tauata, whither he returned

the same night in an outrigger, daring the deep with these young-

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