I pause with the list still incomplete, but enough uses have been enumerated, I trust, to make it comprehensible that the most drastic punishment that can be meted out to a South Sea village—one that is still resorted to in the Solomons and New Hebrides when a missionary is murdered or a labour schooner "cut out"—is to destroy its coconut trees.
Our Samoan laundryman was the source of considerable amusement during our stay in Pago Pago. Several of those indispensable functionaries came alongside on the day of the yacht's arrival, all bearing credentials of the highest order. One Maritomi, however, with a testimonial on the crested note paper of the Earl of Crawford affirming that the bearer had done the washing for his yacht, Valhalla, during her visit to Pago Pago, and had performed the work with neatness and dispatch, made the most favourable impression and was given a trial bundle. Among the things was a number of white duck uniforms, from the coats of which, in the hurry of arrival, the brass buttons had not been removed. The coats came back in time, neatly laundered, but unaccompanied either by the buttons or an explanation.
When Maritomi came round for the washing the following week he at first denied all knowledge of the missing buttons, asseverating that he was a "mitinary" boy and therefore could not steal even if he wanted to. This failing to make an impression, he finally admitted that he had the buttons, but claimed that buttons were his rightful perquisites, adding that he had kept the buttons of the Earl of Crawford every wash and had still been given a good character by His Lordship's steward. What was more, he said he was going to keep all of our buttons he could lay his hands on, and was going to feel very hurt if we, too, didn't give him a good character on our departure. We didn't think we were better than the Earl of Crawford, did we? That would be too absurd when the Valhalla was three times as big as the Lurline and had steam-power besides. Of course there was no upsetting a precedent established by so illustrious a personage as the Earl of Crawford, and therefore it was that all that our good laundryman threatened came to pass.
On the morning of our departure when he came off with farewell presents of tappa and war clubs, the grateful Maritomi showed his appreciation of the testimonial we had given him by appearing in one of the Commodore's white duck uniforms, with Lurline buttons drawing the jacket together across his brawny chest, while the delivery boy who accompanied him perspired in the unwonted grip of a dress coat of an officer of the Valhalla. We forgave Maritomi much for the delicacy of feeling he displayed in putting the Valhalla coat on the delivery boy.
[CHAPTER XIII]
SAMOAN CRICKET: FAUGA-SA V. PAGO PAGO
The captain of Fauga-sa drank deep from his epu of kava, tossed the heel-taps over his shoulder as etiquette required, and sent the shining coconut cup spinning back across the mat to the feet of the taupo, who, in festal regalia of dancing skirt and tuiga, presided at the kava bowl. Then he nodded gravely to the Pago Pago captain opposite, and each leaned forward and laid a honey-hearted hibiscus blossom in the palm of his outstretched hand.
Instantly every voice within and without the council house was hushed, and in the waiting silence the buzzing of a huge blue-bottle fly sounded insistently above the lap of the wavelets on the beach and the lisp of the leaves of the palms. Suddenly the buzzing ceased, and with a great shout of triumph the Fauga-sa captain sprang to his feet and waved a hand from the doorway, on which action his shout was immediately taken up by the other eight and sixty members of his team, who fairly set the hillsides ringing with their ululating cries.