“Brooms,” Mrs. Ulswater said, speaking of the islanders, “brooms, soap, and taking pains, are what they need.”
An ominous phrase, “taking pains”! Is it a fact that not enough pains are thrust upon us in the normal course of events, that we must acquire “pains”?
I stumped Mrs. Ulswater with that question. Hadn't mankind enough pains without taking pains? She said:
“The Kanakas haven't,” and then reflected. “People,” she said, “never got civilised by having a good time.”
I fear that proposition is sound.
CHAPTER XV—SADLER
The festival of Christmas was approaching. Susannah was greatly excited over the preparations. Mrs. Ulswater was making mince pies. Ram Nad—whose opinion of himself is that he is an astral and unworldly soul, while Mrs. Ulswater's is that he differs from all heathen described in the missionary quarterlies, and my own is that he is as full of gammon as an eggshell is full of egg—Ram Nad was taking no interest in mince pies. For myself, in the tropics, I would as soon have eaten a pound of bent whalebone, or a swarm of congealed bees, as a mince pie, whose inward action upon me would, I was sure, be similar to that of resilient whalebone or thawed-out bees; and therefore, although interested in mince pies, I yet regarded the subject with a certain,—shall I say?—anxiety. It was under these circumstances that we sighted, approached, and at length took anchorage at the island of Lua.
It was not an unknown Pacific Island, nor yet well-known. The date of its discovery, its size, inhabitants and products will not be found stated in a school geography, but a good chart will show its location. Whether or not there were any white men there I did not know, but thought it likely. There is a considerable and curious drifting white population in the South Pacific. The Caucasian is ubiquitous. There is a restless germ in his blood, unknown to the Oriental and mysterious to himself.