attraction of a feast. To-day they are paying the penalty of this

bloody commixture. The civil power, in its crusade against man-

eating, has had to examine one after another all Marquesan arts and

pleasures, has found them one after another tainted with a cannibal

element, and one after another has placed them on the proscript

list. Their art of tattooing stood by itself, the execution

exquisite, the designs most beautiful and intricate; nothing more

handsomely sets off a handsome man; it may cost some pain in the

beginning, but I doubt if it be near so painful in the long-run,

and I am sure it is far more becoming than the ignoble European

practice of tight-lacing among women. And now it has been found

needful to forbid the art. Their songs and dances were numerous

(and the law has had to abolish them by the dozen). They now face

empty-handed the tedium of their uneventful days; and who shall

pity them? The least rigorous will say that they were justly

served.

Death alone could not satisfy Marquesan vengeance: the flesh must

be eaten. The chief who seized Mr. Whalon preferred to eat him;

and he thought he had justified the wish when he explained it was a

vengeance. Two or three years ago, the people of a valley seized

and slew a wretch who had offended them. His offence, it is to be

supposed, was dire; they could not bear to leave their vengeance

incomplete, and, under the eyes of the French, they did not dare to

hold a public festival. The body was accordingly divided; and

every man retired to his own house to consummate the rite in

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