ships and
against vagabondage in the Marquesas. Meantime the prisoner was happy.
Many a Tahitian and white sailor gazes toward these islands as a
haven from trouble, and in Huahine's exploit I read the story of
many a poor white who in the early days cast away home and friends
and arduous toil to dwell here in a breadfruity harem.

"There is a tale told long ago by a man of Hanamenu to a traveler
named Christian," I said to Haabunai, the carver, while we sat
rolling pandanus cigarettes in the cool of the evening. "It runs thus:

"Some thirty years ago a sailor from a trading schooner that had put
into the bay for sandalwood was badly treated by his skipper, who
refused him shore-leave. So, his bowels hot with anger, this sailor
determined to desert his hard and unthanked toil, wed some island
heiress, and live happy ever after. Therefore one evening he swam
ashore, found a maid to his liking, and was hidden by her until the
ship departed.

"Now Tahia was a good wife, and loved her beautiful white man; all
that a wife could do she did, cooking his food, bathing his feet,
rolling cigarettes for him all day long as he lay upon the mats. But
her father in time became troubled, and there was grumbling among the
people, for the white man would not work.

"He would not climb the palm to bring down the nuts; he lay and
laughed on his _paepae_ in the Meinui, the season of breadfruit,
when all were busy; and when they brought him rusty old muskets to
care for, he turned his back upon them. Sometimes he fished, going
out in a canoe that Tahia paddled, and making her fix the bait on
the hook, but he caught few fish.

"'_Aue te hanahana, aua ho'i te kaikai_,' said his father-in-law. 'He
who will not labor, neither shall he eat.' But the white man laughed
and ate and labored not.

"A season passed and another, and there came a time of little rain.
The bananas were few, and the breadfruit were not plentiful. One
evening, therefore, the old men met in conference, and this was
their decision: 'Rats are becoming a nuisance, and we will abate them.'

"Next morning the father sent Tahia on an errand to another valley.
Then men began to dig a large oven in the earth before Tahia's house,
where the white man lay on the mats at ease. Presently he looked and
wondered and looked again. And at length he rose and came down to
the oven, saying, 'What's up?'

"'Plenty _kaikai_. Big pig come by and by,' they said.

"So he stood waiting w