he symptoms were so too. How
singular to consider that a superstition of such sway is possibly a
manufactured article; and that, even if it were not originally invented,
its details have plainly been arranged by the authorities of some
Polynesian Scotland Yard. Fitly enough, the belief is to-day--and was
probably always--far from universal. Hell at home is a strong deterrent
with some; a passing thought with others; with others, again, a theme of
public mockery, not always well assured; and so in the Marquesas with
the tapu. Mr. Regler has seen the two extremes of scepticism and
implicit fear. In the tapu grove he found one fellow stealing
breadfruit, cheerful and impudent as a street arab; and it was only on a
menace of exposure that he showed himself the least discountenanced. The
other case was opposed in every point. Mr. Regler asked a native to
accompany him upon a voyage; the man went gladly enough, but suddenly
perceiving a dead tapu fish in the bottom of the boat, leaped back with
a scream; nor could the promise of a dollar prevail upon him to advance.

The Marquesan, it will be observed, adheres to the old idea of the local
circumscription of beliefs and duties. Not only are the whites exempt
from consequences; but their transgressions seem to be viewed without
horror. It was Mr. Regler who had killed the fish; yet the devout native
was not shocked at Mr. Regler--only refused to join him in his boat. A
white is a white: the servant (so to speak) of other and more liberal
gods; and not to be blamed if he profit by his liberty. The Jews were
perhaps the first to interrupt this ancient comity of faiths; and the
Jewish virus is still strong in Christianity. All the world must respect
our tapus, or we gnash our teeth.

CHAPTER VII

HATIHEU

The bays of Anaho and Hatiheu are divided at their roots by the
knife-edge of a single hill--the pass so often mentioned; but this
isthmus expands to the seaward in a considerable peninsula: very bare
and grassy; haunted by sheep, and, at night and morning, by the piercing
cries of the shepherds; wandered over by a few wild goats; and on its
sea-front indented with long, clamorous caves, and faced with cliffs of
the colour and ruinous outline of an old peat-stack. In one of these
echoing and sunless gullies we saw, clustered like sea-birds on a
splashing ledge, shrill as sea-birds in their salutation to the passing
boat, a group of fisherwomen, stripped to their gaudy