past of violence and sickening feasts, step forth, in her age, a

quiet, smooth, elaborate old lady, such as you might find at home

(mittened also, but not often so well-mannered) in a score of

country houses. Only Vaekehu's mittens were of dye, not of silk;

and they had been paid for, not in money, but the cooked flesh of

men. It came in my mind with a clap, what she could think of it

herself, and whether at heart, perhaps, she might not regret and

aspire after the barbarous and stirring past. But when I asked

Stanislao--'Ah!' said he, 'she is content; she is religious, she

passes all her days with the sisters.'

Stanislao (Stanislaos, with the final consonant evaded after the

Polynesian habit) was sent by Bishop Dordillon to South America,

and there educated by the fathers. His French is fluent, his talk

sensible and spirited, and in his capacity of ganger-in-chief, he

is of excellent service to the French. With the prestige of his

name and family, and with the stick when needful, he keeps the

natives working and the roads passable. Without Stanislao and the

convicts, I am in doubt what would become of the present regimen in

Nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up,

the pier to wash away, and the Residency to fall piecemeal about

the ears of impotent officials. And yet though the hereditary

favourer, and one of the chief props of French authority, he has

always an eye upon the past. He showed me where the old public

place had stood, still to be traced by random piles of stone; told

me how great and fine it was, and surrounded on all sides by

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