comparative
indifference, elephantiasis with disproportionate fear. But, unlike
indeed to the Tahitian, their alarm puts on the guise of self-defence.
Any one stricken with this painful and ugly malady is confined to the
ends of villages, denied the use of paths and highways, and condemned to
transport himself between his house and coco-patch by water only, his
very footprint being held infectious. Fe'efe'e, being a creature of
marshes and the sequel of malarial fever, is not original in atolls. On
the single isle of Makatea, where the lagoon is now a marsh, the disease
has made a home. Many suffer: they are excluded (if Mr. Wilmot be right)
from much of the comfort of society; and it is believed they take a
secret vengeance. The dejections of the sick are considered highly
poisonous. Early in the morning, it is narrated, aged and malicious
persons creep into the sleeping village, and stealthily make water at
the doors of the houses of young men. Thus they propagate disease; thus
they breathe on and obliterate comeliness and health, the objects of
their envy. Whether horrid fact or more abominable legend, it equally
depicts that something bitter and energetic which distinguishes
Paumotuan man.

The archipelago is divided between two main religions, Catholic and
Mormon. They front each other proudly with a false air of permanence;
yet are but shapes, their membership in a perpetual flux. The Mormon
attends mass with devotion; the Catholic sits attentive at a Mormon
sermon, and to-morrow each may have transferred allegiance. One man had
been a pillar of the Church of Rome for fifteen years; his wife dying,
he decided that must be a poor religion that could not save a man his
wife, and turned Mormon. According to one informant, Catholicism was
the more fashionable in health, but on the approach of sickness it was
judged prudent to secede. As a Mormon, there were five chances out of
six you might recover; as a Catholic, your hopes were small; and this
opinion is perhaps founded on the comfortable rite of unction.

We all know what Catholics are, whether in the Paumotus or at home. But
the Paumotuan Mormon seemed a phenomenon apart. He marries but the one
wife, uses the Protestant Bible, observes Protestant forms of worship,
forbids the use of liquor and tobacco, practises adult baptism by
immersion, and after every public sin, rechristens the backslider. I
advised with Mahinui, whom I found well informed in the history of