from its hold upon me.

I then turned and saw that it was a monkey tied to a rope fastened to
the limb of the tree. He stood upright on the ground, his jaws agape,
and a look of devilish glee upon his uncannily manlike face. At the
same moment a white man ran from the house and called in English:

"You damned little scoundrel! How often have I whipped you for
that same trick! I would better have left you in the slums in San
Francisco."

And then apologetically to me:

"I ought to kill him for that. He's a devil, that monkey. He has
bitten all the children around here, has killed all my chickens,
and raised more hell in this village than the whole population put
together. I swear, I believe he just enjoys being mean. Come in and
have a snifter after that greeting! Did he hurt you?"

My would-be host was himself a very striking somebody. He wore only
a pareu, as I, of scarlet muslin, with the William Morris design,
but he had wound his about so that it was a mere ornamental triangle
upon his tall, powerful, statuesque body. His chest and back had a
growth of red-gold hair, which, with his bronzed skin, his red-gold
beard, dark curls over a high forehead, handsome nose, and blue
eyes, made him all of the same color scheme. He was without doubt as
near to a Greek deity in life, a Dionysus, as one could imagine. He
had two flaming hibiscus blossoms over his ears, and he looked in
his late twenties. Accustomed as I was to semi-nudity and to white
men's return to nature, I had never seen a man who so well fitted
into the landscape as the owner of the ape. He was the faun to the
curling locks and the pointed ears, with not a trace of the satyr;
all youth and grace and radiance.

He walked on before me to the fare, and, opening the door, bade me
welcome. The house differed from the aboriginal in a wooden floor and
three walls of wire screen above four feet of wainscot. The roof was
lofty, of plaited pandanus-leaves, with large spaces under the eaves
for the circulation of air; but the immediate suggestion was of an
aviary, a cage thirty feet square. Attached to this room was a lean-to
kitchen, and near by, hidden behind the cage, was another native
house for sleeping. The aviary was the living- and dining-quarters,
protected from all insect pests, and an arbor covered with vines led
to the water.

Many canvases were about, on an easel an unfinished group of three
Tahitian boys, and a case of books against the one solid