had begun the
movement of exodus, his native employes resigning court appointments and
retiring each to his own coco-patch in the remoter districts of the
isle. Upon the back of that, the Governor in Papeete issued a decree:
All land in the Paumotus must be defined and registered by a certain
date. Now, the folk of the archipelago are half nomadic; a man can
scarce be said to belong to a particular atoll; he belongs to several,
perhaps holds a stake and counts cousinship in half a score; and the
inhabitants of Rotoava in particular, man, woman, and child, and from
the gendarme to the Mormon prophet and the schoolmaster, owned--I was
going to say land--owned at least coral blocks and growing coco-palms in
some adjacent isle. Thither--from the gendarme to the babe in arms, the
pastor followed by his flock, the schoolmaster carrying along with him
his scholars, and the scholars with their books and slates--they had
taken ship some two days previous to our arrival, and were all now
engaged disputing boundaries. Fancy overhears the shrillness of their
disputation mingle with the surf and scatter sea-fowl. It was admirable
to observe the completeness of their flight, like that of hibernating
birds; nothing left but empty houses, like old nests to be reoccupied in
spring; and even the harmless necessary dominie borne with them in their
transmigration. Fifty odd set out, and only seven, I was informed,
remained. But when I made a feast on board the _Casco_, more than seven,
and nearer seven times seven, appeared to be my guests. Whence they
appeared, how they were summoned, whither they vanished when the feast
was eaten, I have no guess. In view of low island tales, and that awful
frequentation which makes men avoid the seaward beaches of an atoll,
some two score of those that ate with us may have returned, for the
occasion, from the kingdom of the dead.

It was this solitude that put it in our minds to hire a house, and
become, for the time being, indwellers of the isle--a practice I have
ever since, when it was possible, adhered to. Mr. Donat placed us, with
that intent, under the convoy of one Taniera Mahinui, who combined the
incongruous characters of catechist and convict. The reader may smile,
but I affirm he was well qualified for either part. For that of convict,
first of all, by a good substantial felony, such as in all lands casts
the perpetrator in chains and dungeons. Taniera was a man of birth--the
chief a while ag