gs; very glad
we shall be to see them; but two of the party are ladies, and I tell you
we had to hold a council of war to stow them. You European ladies are so
particular; with all of mine, sleeping has long become a public
function, as with natives and those who go down much into the sea in
ships.

Dear Mrs. Fairchild, I must go to my work. I have but two words to say
in conclusion.

First, civilisation is rot.

Second, console a savage with more of the milk of that over-civilised
being, your adorable schoolboy.

As I wrote these remarkable words, I was called down to eight o'clock
prayers, and have just worked through a chapter of Joshua and five
verses, with five treble choruses, of a Samoan hymn; but the music was
good, our boys and precentress ('tis always a woman that leads) did
better than I ever heard them, and to my great pleasure I understood it
all except one verse. This gave me the more time to try and identify
what the parts were doing, and further convict my dull ear. Beyond the
fact that the soprano rose to the tonic above, on one occasion I could
recognise nothing. This is sickening, but I mean to teach my ear better
before I am done with it or this vile carcase.

I think it will amuse you (for a last word) to hear that our
precentress--she is the washerwoman--is our shame. She is a good,
healthy, comely, strapping young wench, full of energy and seriousness,
a splendid workwoman, delighting to train our chorus, delighting in the
poetry of the hymns, which she reads aloud (on the least provocation)
with a great sentiment of rhythm. Well, then, what is curious? Ah, we
did not know! but it was told us in a whisper from the cook-house--she
is not of good family. Don't let it get out, please; everybody knows it,
of course, here; there is no reason why Europe and the States should
have the advantage of me also. And the rest of my house-folk are all
chief-people, I assure you. And my late overseer (far the best of his
race) is a really serious chief with a good "name." Tina is the name; it
is not in the Almanach de Gotha, it must have got dropped at press. The
odd thing is, we rather share the prejudice. I have almost
always--though not quite always--found the higher the chief the better
the man through all the islands; or, at least, that the best man came
always from a highish rank. I hope Helen will continue to prove a bright
exception.

With love to Fairchild and the Huge Schoolboy, I am, my dear Mr