na, or Monsieur
le Chef de Mataiea, Tetuanui, and his wife, Haamoura, were the salt of
the earth. The chief was a large man, molded on a great frame, and very
corpulent, as are most Polynesians of more than thirty years. He was
about sixty, strong and sweet by nature, brave and simple. His vahine
was very stout, half blind from cataracts, but ever busied about her
household and her guests. As chief and roadmaster of his district,
Tetuanui received a small compensation, but not enough for the wants
of his dependents, so a few paying white guests were sent to him by
Lovaina. The house was set back from the Broom Road in a clearing
of a wood of cocoanuts, breadfruits, badamiers, and vi-apples. The
father of Haamoura had given the land to his daughter, and they had
built on it a residence of two high stories, with wide verandas.

The chief and his wife had no children, but had adopted
twenty-five. They had brought most of these to manhood and womanhood,
and many were married. Perhaps their care, dots for the daughters,
and estates for the sons, had made the parents poor. One was the
blood son of Prince Hinoe, and was now a youth, and worked about the
plantation of the chief. His christened name was Ariipaea Temanutuanuu
Teariitinorua Tetuanui a Oropaa Pomare. He was a prince and very
handsome and gentle, but he gathered the leaves from the volunteer
lawn for the horses. There was an atmosphere of affection and happiness
about the home I have not sensed more keenly anywhere else.

The Duke of Abruzzi's photograph and one of the Italian war-ship
Liguria, were on a wall in the drawing-room, with others of notable
people whom the chief had entertained. He himself wore the cross of
the Legion of Honor, which had been presented to him in Paris when
he visited there many years before.

The house was raised ten feet from the earth, and the ground below
was neatly covered with black pebbles from the shore. Shaded by the
veranda-floors, which formed the ceilings of their open rooms, the
family sat on mats, and made hats, sewed, sang, and chatted. They
laughed all day. A dozen children played on the sward where horses,
ducks, geese, chickens, and turkeys fed and led their life. When rice
or corn was thrown to them, the mina-birds flocked to share it. These
impudent thieves pounced on the best grains, and though the chickens
fought them, they appeared to be afraid only of the ducks. These
hated the minas, and pursued them angrily. B