[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

THE SONG OF THE MAORI

There is a Tongan proverb which tells us that only fools and children
lie awake during hours that could be devoted to slumber, and it is a
wise proverb when you judge it from a Polynesian standpoint. No special
preparations are required for slumber in the last haunts of Romance, and
as one does not lose caste by dozing in public, the South Sea dweller
sees no reason for remaining awake when he could be peacefully sleeping.
The shade of a palm tree furnishes an ideal resting place, and if a dog
fight occurs in the grass-grown street, he becomes a box-seat spectator
without moving from his couch. Levuka, the second largest town in the
Fijis, was dozing on the afternoon of December 14, 1905, and I decided
to follow the example set by the inhabitants. The thermometer in the
shack at the end of the wharf registered 98 degrees, but the picturesque
little town, with its white and vermilion-tinted houses, looked restful
and cool. The hot, still atmosphere weighed down upon the Pacific,
ironing out the wind ruffles till the ocean resembled a plain of glass,
in which the Union Company's steamer _Navua_, from Auckland, appeared to
be stuck fast, as if the glassy sea had suddenly hardened around her
black hull.

A thin strip of shadow huddled close to a pile of pearl shell at the end
of the wharf, and I doubled myself up and attempted to sleep. But
hardwood planks don't make an ideal resting place. Besides, the rays of
sun followed the strip of shadow around the pile, and each time I
slipped into a doze I would be pricked into wakefulness. At last,
maddened by the biting rays, I collected half a dozen copra bags,
splintered a piece of _kauri_ pine, and after rigging up one bag as an
awning, I spread the others on the planks and fell asleep.

But another disturbing element awakened me from a short slumber. From
the sea end of the deserted wharf came a big, greasy Maori and a
fuzzy-headed Fijian, and their words went out into the silence like
sound projectiles. The Maori had such a high-pitched voice that I
thought, as I rolled over restlessly, he would only have to raise it a
little to make them hear him up in Sydney, eighteen hundred miles away.
It was one of those voices that fairly cavort over big distances, and I
buried my head in the shell as the pair came closer.

It was useless to attempt to shut out that voice. I stuffed a piece of
bag into the e