cess prayed she might continue to be numbered with
the dead. But it seems it was too late, her spirit was replaced by the
least dignified of entrances, and her startled family beheld the body
move. The seemingly purgatorial labours, the helpful kindred spirit, and
the horror of the princess at the sight of her tainted body, are all
points to be remarked.

The truth is, the tales are not necessarily consistent in themselves;
and they are further darkened for the stranger by an ambiguity of
language. Ghosts, vampires, spirits, and gods are all confounded. And
yet I seem to perceive that (with exceptions) those whom we would count
gods were less maleficent. Permanent spirits haunt and do murder in
corners of Samoa; but those legitimate gods of Upolu and Savaii, whose
wars and cricketings of late convulsed society, I did not gather to be
dreaded, or not with a like fear. The spirit of Anaa that ate souls is
certainly a fearsome inmate; but the high gods, even of the archipelago,
seem helpful. Mahinui--from whom our convict-catechist had been
named--the spirit of the sea, like a Proteus endowed with endless
avatars, came to the assistance of the shipwrecked and carried them
ashore in the guise of a ray-fish. The same divinity bore priests from
isle to isle about the archipelago, and by his aid, within the century,
persons have been seen to fly. The tutelar deity of each isle is
likewise helpful, and by a particular form of wedge-shaped cloud on the
horizon announces the coming of a ship.

To one who conceives of these atolls, so narrow, so barren, so beset
with sea, here would seem a superfluity of ghostly denizens. And yet
there are more. In the various brackish pools and ponds, beautiful women
with long red hair are seen to rise and bathe; only (timid as mice) on
the first sound of feet upon the coral they dive again for ever. They
are known to be healthy and harmless living people, dwellers of an
underworld; and the same fancy is current in Tahiti, where also they
have the hair red. _Tetea_ is the Tahitian name; the Paumotuan,
_Mokurea_.

PART III

THE EIGHT ISLANDS

CHAPTER I

THE KONA COAST

Of the island of Hawaii, though I have passed days becalmed under its
lee, and spent a week upon its shores, I have never yet beheld the
profile. Dense clouds continued to enshroud it far below its midst; not
only the zone of snow and fire, but a great part of the forest region,
covered or at least veiled by