ly sterile and dull.

The medium is sometimes female. It was a woman, for instance, who
introduced these practices on the north coast of Taiarapu, to the
scandal of her own connections, her brother-in-law in particular
declaring she was drunk. But what shocked Tahiti might seem fit enough
in the Paumotus, the more so as certain women there possess, by the gift
of nature, singular and useful powers. They say they are honest,
well-intentioned ladies, some of them embarrassed by their weird
inheritance. And indeed the trouble caused by this endowment is so
great, and the protection afforded so infinitesimally small, that I
hesitate whether to call it a gift or a hereditary curse. You may rob
this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay
her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a
hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only
be cured by the lady or her husband. Here is the report of an
eyewitness, Tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made
money--certainly no fool. In 1886 he was present in a house on Makatea,
where two lads began to skylark on the mats, and were (I think) ejected.
Instantly after, their bellies began to swell; pains took hold on them;
all manner of island remedies were exhibited in vain, and rubbing only
magnified their sufferings. The man of the house was called, explained
the nature of the visitation, and prepared the cure. A cocoa-nut was
husked, filled with herbs, and with all the ceremonies of a launch, and
the utterance of spells in the Paumotuan language, committed to the sea.
From that moment the pains began to grow more easy and the swelling to
subside. The reader may stare. I can assure him, if he moved much among
old residents of the archipelago, he would be driven to admit one thing
of two--either that there is something in the swollen bellies or nothing
in the evidence of man.

I have not met these gifted ladies; but I had an experience of my own,
for I have played, for one night only, the part of the whistling spirit.
It had been blowing wearily all day, but with the fall of night the wind
abated, and the moon, which was then full, rolled in a clear sky. We
went southward down the island on the side of the lagoon, walking
through long-drawn forest aisles of palm, and on a floor of snowy sand.
No life was abroad, nor sound of life; till in a clear part of the isle
we spied the embers of a fire, and not far off,