their evening
sacrifice of song; night after night, in the other, the wife of the
Tahitian lay awake and listened to their singing with amazement. At
length she could contain herself no longer, woke her husband, and asked
him what he heard. "I hear several persons singing hymns," said he.
"Yes," she returned, "but listen again! Do you not hear something
supernatural?" His attention thus directed, he was aware of a strange
buzzing voice--and yet he declared it was beautiful--which justly
accompanied the singers. The next day he made inquiries. "It is a
spirit," said the prophet, with entire simplicity, "which has lately
made a practice of joining us at family worship." It did not appear the
thing was visible, and, like other spirits raised nearer home in these
degenerate days, it was rudely ignorant, at first could only buzz, and
had only learned of late to bear a part correctly in the music.

The performances of the Whistlers are more business-like. Their meetings
are held publicly with open doors, all being "cordially invited to
attend." The faithful sit about the room--according to one informant,
singing hymns; according to another, now singing and now whistling; the
leader, the wizard--let me rather say, the medium--sits in the midst,
enveloped in a sheet and silent; and presently, from just above his
head, or sometimes from the midst of the roof, an aerial whistling
proceeds, appalling to the inexperienced. This, it appears, is the
language of the dead; its purport is taken down progressively by one of
the expert, writing, I was told, "as fast as a telegraph operator"; and
the communications are at last made public. They are of the baldest
triviality; a schooner is perhaps announced, some idle gossip reported
of a neighbour, or if the spirit shall have been called to consultation
on a case of sickness, a remedy may be suggested. One of these,
immersion in scalding water, not long ago proved fatal to the patient.
The whole business is very dreary, very silly, and very European; it has
none of the picturesque qualities of similar conjurations in New
Zealand; it seems to possess no kernel of possible sense, like some that
I shall describe among the Gilbert islanders. Yet I was told that many
hardy, intelligent natives were inveterate whistlers. "Like Mahinui?" I
asked, willing to have a standard; and I was told "Yes." Why should I
wonder? Men more enlightened than my convict catechist sit down at home
to follies equal