he volume of sound, and were mingled in the emmeleia,
a resulting magnificence of accord that reminded me curiously of a
great pipe-organ.

The himene was the offspring of the original efforts of the
Polynesians to adapt the songs of the sailormen, the national airs
of the adventurers of many countries, the rollicking obscenities and
drinking doggerel of the navies, and the religious hymns drilled into
their ears by the missionaries, English and French. Now the words and
the meanings were inextricably confused. A leader might begin with,
"I am washed in the blood of the Lamb," or, "The Son of Man goes
forth to war, a golden crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams
afar--who follows in his train?" But those striking in might prefer
such a phrase as, "The old white pig ran into the sea," or, "Johnny
Brown, I love your daughter," or something not possible to write
down. It was mostly in the old Tahitian language, almost forgotten,
and thus unknown to the foreign preachers. Sex and religion were as
mingled here as in America.

The airs were as wild as they were melodious; here a rippling torrent
of ra, ra, ra-ra-ra, and la, la, la-la-la breaking in on the sustained
verses of the leaders; falsetto notes, high and strident, savage and
shrilling, piercing the thrumming diapason of the men; long, droning
tones like bagpipes, bubbling sounds like water flowing; and all
in perfect time. The clear, fascinating false soprano of the woman
leader had a cadence of ecstasy, and I marked her under a lamp. Her
head was thrown back, her eyes were closed, and her features set as
in a trance. Her throat and mouth moved, and her nostrils quivered,
her countenance glorified by her visions which had transported her
to the bosom of Abraham.

The atmosphere rang as with the chimes of a cathedral, the
echoes--there were none in reality--returning from roof and tree, and
I had the feeling of the air being made up of voices, and of whirling
in this magic ether. The woman I observed would seem about to stop,
her voice falling away almost to no sound, and the prolonged drone
of the chorus dying out, when, as if she had come to life again,
she sang out at the top of her lungs, and the ranks again took up
their tones. I could almost trace the imposition of the religious
strain upon the savage, the Christian upon the heathen, like the
negro spirituals of Georgia, and I sat back in my chair, and forgot
the scene in the thoughts induced by the hime