the convert some of the
exhilaration of adventure. Other attractions are certainly conjoined.
Perpetual rebaptism, leading to a succession of baptismal feasts, is
found, both from the social and the spiritual side, a pleasing feature.
More important is the fact that all the faithful enjoy office; perhaps
more important still, the strictness of the discipline. "The veto on
liquor," said Mr. Magee, "brings them plenty members." There is no doubt
these islanders are fond of drink, and no doubt they refrain from the
indulgence; a bout on a feast-day, for instance, may be followed by a
week or a month of rigorous sobriety. Mr. Wilmot attributes this to
Paumotuan frugality and the love of hoarding; it goes far deeper. I have
mentioned that I made a feast on board the _Casco_. To wash down ship's
bread and jam, each guest was given the choice of rum or syrup, and out
of the whole number only one man voted--in a defiant tone, and amid
shouts of mirth--for "Trum"! This was in public. I had the meanness to
repeat the experiment, whenever I had a chance, within the four walls of
my house; and three at least, who had refused at the festival, greedily
drank rum behind a door. But there were others thoroughly consistent. I
said the virtues of the race were bourgeois and puritan; and how
bourgeois is this! how puritanic! how Scottish! and how Yankee!--the
temptation, the resistance, the public hypocritical conformity, the
Pharisees, the Holy Willies, and the true disciples. With such a people
the popularity of an ascetic Church appears legitimate; in these strict
rules, in this perpetual supervision, the weak find their advantage, the
strong a certain pleasure; and the doctrine of rebaptism, a clean bill
and a fresh start, will comfort many staggering professors.

There is yet another sect, or what is called a sect--no doubt
improperly--that of the Whistlers. Duncan Cameron, so clear in favour of
the Mormons, was no less loud in condemnation of the Whistlers. Yet I do
not know; I still fancy there is some connection, perhaps fortuitous,
probably disavowed. Here at least are some doings in the house of an
Israelite clergyman (or prophet) in the island Anaa, of which I am
equally sure that Duncan would disclaim and the Whistlers hail them for
an imitation of their own. My informant, a Tahitian and a Catholic,
occupied one part of the house; the prophet and his family lived in the
other. Night after night the Mormons, in the one end, held