"Those? Graves. They've always buried their dead alongside the tracks, and we saw no reason to interfere. Good grave, coral, like a sponge—everything into the sea in no time. On top? Oh, that may be anything from a canoe to a pair of old boots. They have the same idea of 'laying the table' with the deceased's personal belongings as so many others. I nearly stole one of them once. It was a perfectly good sewing-machine, and my wife had nothing to run up curtains and things with when we came here. But I thought better of it. You have to go warily with these gentry."
At this juncture the long-suffering car plunged axle-deep into a quagmire of disintegrated coral, and refused to emerge until an army of Niuéans—advancing on us like a devastating host—attached themselves to its various parts and, by sheer manpower accompanied with indispensable yelling, dragged it forth.
Mr. Masters himself (with beard) boards the Dream Ship
We were close to a village, and the piea makers were at work. As a sidelight on the painstaking industry of these people, their preparation of arrowroot for food is illuminating. In an age when machinery does everything but—I was going to say "talk," but correct myself advisedly—it is a lesson in certain virtues that we of to-day seem to have mislaid.
The Dream Ship Bargain Sale
Only one family works at a time, and brings its own implements. A stretch of coral sand is selected, and staffed with men, women, and children. The old women scrape off the discoloured rind of the roots with splintered cocoanut shell and throw them into a palm-leaf basket which the children rinse in salt water and carry to the men. They in turn grate the root into a coarse powder with instruments made of cylindrical-shaped pieces of wood bound at intervals with sinnet, the powder falling on to finely woven mats which are carried away by girls and tipped into a cradle of bamboo and cocoanut-fibre. This acts as a filter, through which salt water is poured while a man kneads the powder into a dough with such energy that he has to be relieved at frequent intervals.
The white spectators, if any, are then politely requested to retire while the final process of kneading and washing in fresh water is in progress, as it has been satisfactorily established that their mere glance turns piea sour.
Not wishing to dispute the fact, we complied—with the exception of Mrs. Commissioner's little girl, who had long cherished a desire to see the forbidden rite. Peering from behind a coral boulder, she was caught in the act and chased headlong and crying with fright before a shower of stones, to be comforted by her mother but severely reprimanded by the Commissioner, who is very rightly a stickler for etiquette where "his people" are concerned.