e to examine the ship's papers,
and to receive the new governor.

A look of blank amazement appeared upon the round face of M. L'Hermier
des Plantes when it was conveyed to him that this solitary
whaleboat had brought a solitary white to welcome him to his seat of
government. He had been assiduously preparing for his reception for
many hours and was immaculately dressed in white duck, his legs in
high, brightly-polished boots, his two stripes in velvet on his
sleeve, and his military cap shining. He knew no more about the
Marquesas than I, having come directly via Tahiti from France, and he
was plainly dumfounded and dismayed. Was all that tender care of his
whiskers to be wasted on scenery?

However, after a drink or two he resignedly took his belongings, and
dropping into the wet and dirty boat with Bauda, he lifted an
umbrella over his gaudy cap and disappeared in the rain.

"'E's got a bloomin' nice place to live in," remarked Lying Bill.
"Now, if 'e 'd a-been 'ere when I come 'e 'd a-seen something! I
come 'ere thirty-five years ago when I was a young kid. I come with
a skipper and I was the only crew. Me and him, and I was eighteen,
and the boat was the _Victor_. I lived 'ere and about for ten years.
Them was the days for a little excitement. There was a chief, Mohuho,
who'd a-killed me if I 'adn't been _tapu'd_ by Vaekehu, the queen,
wot took a liking to me, me being a kid, and white. I've seen Mohuho
shoot three natives from cocoanut-trees just to try a new gun. 'E
was a bad 'un, 'e was. There was something doing every day, them days.
God, wot it is to be young!"

A little later Lying Bill, Ducat, and I, with my new valet's canoe
in the wake of our boat, rounded the cliffs that had shut off our
view of Atuona Valley. It lay before us, a long and narrow stretch
of sand behind a foaming and heavy surf; beyond, a few scattered
wooden buildings among palm and banian-trees, and above, the ribbed
gaunt mountains shutting in a deep and gloomy ravine. It was a lonely,
beautiful place, ominous, melancholy, yet majestic.

"Bloody Hiva-oa," this island was called. Long after the French had
subdued by terror the other isles of the group, Hiva-oa remained
obdurate, separate, and untamed. It was the last stronghold of
brutishness, of cruel chiefs and fierce feuds, of primitive and
terrible customs. And of "the man-eating isle of Hiva-oa" Atuona
Valley was the capital.

We landed on the beach dry-shod, through the skil