ope sovereigns
call each other cousin. Yet, had we stayed at Atuona, Paaaeua would have
held himself bound to establish us upon his land, and to set apart young
men for our service, and trees for our support. I have mentioned the
Austrian. He sailed in one of two sister ships, which left the Clyde in
coal; both rounded the Horn, and both, at several hundred miles of
distance, though close on the same point of time, took fire at sea on
the Pacific. One was destroyed; the derelict iron frame of the second,
after long, aimless cruising, was at length recovered, refitted, and
hails to-day from San Francisco. A boat's crew from one of these
disasters reached, after great hardships, the isle of Hiva-oa. Some of
these men vowed they would never again confront the chances of the sea;
but alone of them all the Austrian has been exactly true to his
engagement, remains where he landed, and designs to die where he has
lived. Now, with such a man, falling and taking root among islanders,
the processes described may be compared to a gardener's graft. He passes
bodily into the native stock; ceases wholly to be alien; has entered the
commune of the blood, shares the prosperity and consideration of his new
family, and is expected to impart with the same generosity the fruits of
his European skill and knowledge. It is this implied engagement that so
frequently offends the ingrafted white. To snatch an immediate
advantage--to get (let us say) a station for his store--he will play
upon the native custom and become a son or a brother for the day,
promising himself to cast down the ladder by which he shall have
ascended, and repudiate the kinship so soon as it shall grow burdensome.
And he finds there are two parties to the bargain. Perhaps his
Polynesian relative is simple, and conceived the blood-bond literally;
perhaps he is shrewd, and himself entered the covenant with a view to
gain. And either way the store is ravaged, the house littered with lazy
natives; and the richer the man grows, the more numerous, the more idle,
and the more affectionate he finds his native relatives. Most men thus
circumstanced contrive to buy or brutally manage to enforce their
independence; but many vegetate without hope, strangled by parasites.

We had no cause to blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were kind,
gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most
motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his
employers. E