rought to your door, you have a beverage well "worthy of a grace." All
forenoon you may return and taste; it only sparkles, and sharpens, and
grows to be a new drink, not less delicious; but with the progress of
the day the fermentation quickens and grows acid; in twelve hours it
will be yeast for bread, in two days more a devilish intoxicant, the
counsellor of crime.

The men are of a marked Arabian cast of features, often bearded and
moustached, often gaily dressed, some with bracelets and anklets, all
stalking hidalgo-like, and accepting salutations with a haughty lip. The
hair (with the dandies of either sex) is worn turban-wise in a frizzled
bush; and like the daggers of the Japanese, a pointed stick (used for a
comb) is thrust gallantly among the curls. The women from this bush of
hair look forth enticingly: the race cannot be compared with the
Tahitian for female beauty; I doubt even if the average be high, but
some of the prettiest girls, and one of the handsomest women I ever saw,
were Gilbertines. Butaritari, being the commercial centre of the group,
is Europeanised; the coloured sacque or the white shift are common wear,
the latter for the evening; the trade hat, loaded with flowers, fruit,
and ribbons, is unfortunately not unknown; and the characteristic female
dress of the Gilberts no longer universal. The _ridi_ is its name: a
cutty petticoat or fringe of the smoked fibre of cocoa-nut leaf, not
unlike tarry string; the lower edge not reaching the mid-thigh, the
upper adjusted so low upon the haunches that it seems to cling by
accident. A sneeze, you think, and the lady must surely be left
destitute. "The perilous, hairbreadth ridi" was our word for it; and in
the conflict that rages over women's dress it has the misfortune to
please neither side, the prudish condemning it as insufficient, the more
frivolous finding it unlovely in itself. Yet if a pretty Gilbertine
would look her best, that must be her costume. In that, and naked
otherwise, she moves with an incomparable liberty and grace and life,
that marks the poetry of Micronesia. Bundle her in a gown, the charm is
fled, and she wriggles like an Englishwoman.

Towards dusk the passers-by became more gorgeous. The men broke out in
all the colours of the rainbow--or at least of the trade-room,--and both
men and women began to be adorned and scented with new flowers. A small
white blossom is the favourite, sometimes sown singly in a woman's hair
like litt