Better had it been had the natives never seen the missionaries. What happened in the Marquesas has happened in many other South Sea islands, and no doubt is happening to-day. My conscience smote me. To think, the very pennies I had given in Sunday School for foreign missions had contributed to the calamitous end of the inhabitants of this beautiful garden-spot!

After the girls had told who we were and what we wanted, a large house was put at our disposal, and the women brought mats for us to sit on, while the men p165 started a big fire and roasted several pigs. Others brought fish and poi and eggs and chicken. The feast was spread out on the ruins of an old stone house, and we sat down to eat. Only we white people and the two chief's daughters and the chiefs were together. The other natives would come up respectfully and gather their portion, then withdraw to a little distance and eat. Of all the various kinds of edibles I have tried in different places of this world, I think none could compare with this. The fish was served raw, but it was good. The poi had been buried in the ground until it was slightly fermented. The natives climbed the big cocoanut trees and picked the young nuts for us to drink; and when we had finished eating, they got out their queer musical instruments made of logs, part of the natives danced and others sang, and I lay on my mat when I had finished eating and watched these happy people until it got too dark to see. I could not help thinking of my friends at home, who were bundled in heavy clothes, trying to keep warm, and going to moving-picture shows and dances, and persuading themselves that they were really having a pleasant time. What a contrast between their lot and mine!

That night Jack and Mrs. London slept inside on sleeping-mats thrown on the floor, while the rest of us slept outside on mats thrown on the ground. No mosquitoes or insects bothered us. There were no reptiles for us to be afraid of. The soft-treading p166 natives came and went all night long. Bright and early next morning, we were awakened by the natives' getting breakfast. When the meal was over, we went swimming in Faiaways Lake, and that day we explored the valley, and tried to buy curios. But they would not sell to us. They forced us to take presents of tapa cloth and ornaments of sharks' and porpoises' teeth, and corals, while we made presents to them out of our stores of tinned provisions.

One thing that I tried hard to bring out in photographs was the gorgeous tattooing of the natives, but their skins and the tattooing colour being so near the same shade and hue, the camera cannot catch so subtle a distinction. I tried many exposures, without success.

After the boys are old enough to stand the pain of tattooing, they are started on, and it sometimes takes years to complete them. When they are completed, their eyelids, nose, every part of the body, are covered with fantastic designs. Tattooing seems to be the only really serious thought of these people, except worshipping their big stone idols, several of which we saw in the valley.

One of the girls who had come with us was named Antoinette. She was the last left of royal blood on Nuka-hiva, and she owned nearly all of Typee Valley and most of Hapaa Valley, but she received little revenue. There is much copra, but no one to gather it. Copra, I may explain, is the dried kernel of the cocoanut, valued at about twenty-five cents a hundred.

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