ertain outlying islands,
danger lingers: and the civilised Paumotuan dreads to land and hesitates
to accost his backward brother. But, except in these, to-day the peril
is a memory. When our generation were yet in the cradle and playroom it
was still a living fact. Between 1830 and 1840, Hao, for instance, was a
place of the most dangerous approach, where ships were seized and crews
kidnapped. As late as 1856, the schooner _Sarah Ann_ sailed from
Papeete and was seen no more. She had women on board, and children, the
captain's wife, a nursemaid, a baby, and the two young sons of a Captain
Steven on their way to the mainland for schooling. All were supposed to
have perished in a squall. A year later, the captain of the _Julia_,
coasting along the island variously called Bligh, Lagoon, and Tematangi,
saw armed natives follow the course of his schooner, clad in many
coloured stuffs. Suspicion was at once aroused; the mother of the lost
children was profuse of money; and one expedition having found the place
deserted and returned content with firing a few shots, she raised and
herself accompanied another. None appeared to greet or to oppose them;
they roamed a while among abandoned huts and empty thickets; then formed
two parties and set forth to beat, from end to end, the pandanus jungle
of the island. One man remained alone by the landing-place--Teina, a
chief of Anaa, leader of the armed natives who made the strength of the
expedition. Now that his comrades were departed this way and that, on
their laborious exploration, the silence fell profound; and this silence
was the ruin of the islanders. A sound of stones rattling caught the ear
of Teina. He looked, thinking to perceive a crab, and saw instead the
brown hand of a human being issue from a fissure in the ground. A shout
recalled the search parties and announced their doom to the buried
caitiffs. In the cave below, sixteen were found crouching among human
bones and singular and horrid curiosities. One was a head of golden
hair, supposed to be a relic of the captain's wife, another was half of
the body of a European child, sun-dried and stuck upon a stick,
doubtless with some design of wizardry.

The Paumotuan is eager to be rich. He saves, grudges, buries money,
fears not work. For a dollar each, two natives passed the hours of
daylight cleaning our ship's copper. It was strange to see them so
indefatigable and so much at ease in the water--working at times with
thei