ll under the strong and benign influence of the late
bishop, extended his influence in the group, was for a while joint ruler
with the prelate, and died at last the chief supporter of Catholicism
and the French. His widow remains in receipt of two pounds a month from
the French Government. Queen she is usually called, but in the official
almanac she figures as "_Madame Vaekehu, Grande Chefesse_." His son
(natural or adoptive, I know not which), Stanislao Moanatini, chief of
Akaui, serves in Tai-o-hae as a kind of Minister of Public Works; and
the daughter of Stanislao is High Chiefess of the southern island of
Tauata. These, then, are the greatest folk of the archipelago; we
thought them also the most estimable. This is the rule in Polynesia,
with few exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man--better
in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. A
stranger advances blindfold. He scrapes acquaintance as he can. Save the
tattoo in the Marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and
yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends
were persons of station. I have said "usually taller and stronger." I
might have been more absolute,--over all Polynesia, and a part of
Micronesia, the rule holds good; the great ones of the isle, and even of
the village, are greater of bone and muscle, and often heavier of flesh,
than any commoner. The usual explanation--that the high-born child is
more industriously shampooed--is probably the true one. In New
Caledonia, at least, where the difference does not exist, or has never
been remarked, the practice of shampooing seems to be itself unknown.
Doctors would be well employed in a study of the point.

Vaekehu lives at the other end of the town from the Residency, beyond
the buildings of the mission. Her house is on the European plan: a table
in the midst of the chief room: photographs and religious pictures on
the wall. It commands to either hand a charming vista: through the front
door, a peep of green lawn, scurrying pigs, the pendent fans of the
coco-palm and the splendour of the bursting surf: through the back,
mounting forest glades and coronals of precipice. Here, in the strong
thorough-draught, Her Majesty received us in a simple gown of print, and
with no mark of royalty but the exquisite finish of her tattooed
mittens, the elaboration of her manners, and the gentle falsetto in
which all the highly refined among Marqu