me quickly away, with the intention of turning informer,
and sending the _Kaikos_ in among the party.

The manner of fattening these interesting and delicate animals is not
dissimilar to the process of cramming turkeys with walnuts. They are a
peculiar kind--short-legged and domestic. The feeder takes a mouthful of
_poee-poee_ and raw fish; after masticating it to a proper consistency
and shape, he seizes his victim by the throat, chokes the jaws wide
open, then drops the contents of his own mouth into that of the brute.
We were told that it is only necessary to use this violence with
puppies, on becoming older and docile they take to the food more kindly.

Among other novel sights, I saw with calm pleasure the native boys climb
cocoanut-trees, by tying the big toes together by a wythe of bark, then
aided by hands and knees they run up the tall, waving columns. Down come
bounding the nuts; a small dusky imp at your elbow whisks off the husks
with his teeth! cracks a hole in the skull--up! up! gurgle! gurgle!--and
down your throat glides the cooling and delicious draught. Pine-apples,
too!--large, perfumed, luscious fellows!--thirty for sixpence, and
considered exorbitantly dear at that price! Then there is the spreading
bread-fruit, with the greenest of dark green leaves; but my juvenile
impressions of the fruit I discovered were entirely erroneous; for
instead of being like bakers' loaves, or even French rolls, they were
different as possible; the fruit being enveloped in a coarse, thick
rind, tinged with yellow, with white meat, about twice the bulk of
pippins; and when properly roasted has the taste of an insipid potato.

I have been perfectly sheltered, too, in a pelting, pitiless shower, by
an extempore umbrella, constructed of two big banana leaves; and sipped
water from native cups, made in a trice from a goblet-shaped leaf
snatched at the road side; and on a certain occasion, when wearied by a
long walk, I threw myself beneath the heavy shade of a fan-leafed
pandanmus, and submitted to the _loammi-loammi_. It is a more delicate
operation than the Turkish mode of shampooing, and when the operators
are laughing native girls the sensations are far pleasanter.

They commence a running succession of pinches from heels to shoulders,
accompanied by kneadings, and pokings with the tips of their fingers;
then selecting a clear space, they begin a diapason of light thumps and
blows, interspersed by a gentle trip-hammer