r pipes lighted, the smoker at times submerged and only the glowing
bowl above the surface; it was stranger still to think they were next
congeners to the incapable Marquesan. But the Paumotuan not only saves,
grudges, and works, he steals besides; or, to be more precise, he
swindles. He will never deny a debt, he only flees his creditor. He is
always keen for an advance; so soon as he has fingered it he disappears.
He knows your ship; so soon as it nears one island, he is off to
another. You may think you know his name; he has already changed it.
Pursuit in that infinity of isles were fruitless. The result can be
given in a nutshell. It has been actually proposed in a Government
report to secure debts by taking a photograph of the debtor; and the
other day in Papeete credits on the Paumotus to the amount of sixteen
thousand pounds were sold for less than forty--_quatre cent mille francs
pour moins de mille francs_. Even so, the purchase was thought
hazardous; and only the man who made it and who had special
opportunities could have dared to give so much.

The Paumotuan is sincerely attached to those of his own blood and
household. A touching affection sometimes unites wife and husband. Their
children, while they are alive, completely rule them; after they are
dead, their bones or their mummies are often jealously preserved and
carried from atoll to atoll in the wanderings of the family. I was told
there were many houses in Fakarava with the mummy of a child locked in a
sea-chest; after I heard it, I would glance a little jealously at those
by my own bed; in that cupboard, also, it was possible there was a tiny
skeleton.

The race seems in a fair way to survive. From fifteen islands, whose
rolls I had occasion to consult, I found a proportion of 59 births to 47
deaths for 1887. Dropping three out of the fifteen, there remained for
the other twelve the comfortable ratio of 50 births to 32 deaths. Long
habits of hardship and activity doubtless explain the contrast with
Marquesan figures. But the Paumotuan displays, besides, a certain
concern for health and the rudiments of a sanitary discipline. Public
talk with these free-spoken people plays the part of the Contagious
Diseases Act; incomers to fresh islands anxiously inquire if all be
well; and syphilis, when contracted, is successfully treated with
indigenous herbs. Like their neighbours of Tahiti, from whom they have
perhaps imbibed the error, they regard leprosy with