excitement by a type-writer, which he learned to
work. When he departed he carried away with him a list of his family,
with his own name printed by his own hand at the bottom. I should add
that he was plainly much of a humorist, and not a little of a humbug. He
told us, for instance, that he was a person of exact sobriety; such
being the obligation of his high estate: the commons might be sots, but
the chief could not stoop so low. And not many days after he was to be
observed in a state of smiling and lop-sided imbecility, the _Casco_
ribbon upside down on his dishonoured hat.

But his business that morning in Anaho is what concerns us here. The
devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged
fit to interpose what we should call a close season; for that end, in
Polynesia, a tapu (vulgarly spelt "taboo") has to be declared, and who
was to declare it? Taipi might; he ought; it was a chief part of his
duty; but would any one regard the inhibition of a Beggar on Horseback?
He might plant palm branches: it did not in the least follow that the
spot was sacred. He might recite the spell: it was shrewdly supposed the
spirits would not hearken. And so the old, legitimate cannibal must ride
over the mountains to do it for him; and the respectable official in
white clothes could but look on and envy. At about the same time, though
in a different manner, Kooamua established a forest law. It was observed
the coco-palms were suffering, for the plucking of green nuts
impoverishes and at last endangers the tree. Now Kooamua could tapu the
reef, which was public property, but he could not tapu other people's
palms; and the expedient adopted was interesting. He tapu'd his own
trees, and his example was imitated over all Hatiueu and Anaho. I fear
Taipi might have tapu'd all that he possessed and found none to follow
him. So much for the esteem in which the dignity of an appointed chief
is held by others; a single circumstance will show what he thinks of it
himself. I never met one, but he took an early opportunity to explain
his situation. True, he was only an appointed chief when I beheld him;
but somewhere else, perhaps upon some other isle, he was a chieftain by
descent: upon which ground, he asked me (so to say it) to excuse his
mushroom honours.

It will be observed with surprise that both these tapus are for
thoroughly sensible ends. With surprise, I say, because the nature of
that institution is much misun