hat his errand is, at the border of the village
property."

"Before entering the Mark?" I said, for I had been reading Sir Henry
Maine.

"The pah, the beggars about me call it," said the beach-comber; "perhaps
some niggers you've been reading about call it the Mark. I don't know.
But to be done with this pig. The fire was ready, and they were just
going to cut the poor beast's throat with a green-stone knife, when the
interpreter up and told them 'hands off.' 'That's a taboo pig,' says he.
'A black fellow that died six months ago that pig belonged to. When he
was dying, and leaving his property to his friends, he was very sorry to
part with the pig, so he made him taboo; nobody can touch him. To eat
him is death.'

"Of course this explained why that pig had been left when all the other
live stock and portable property was cleared out. Nobody would touch a
taboo pig, and that pig, I tell you, was tabooed an inch thick. The man
he belonged to had been a Tohunga, and still 'walked,' in the shape of a
lizard. Well, the interpreter, acting most fairly, I must say, explained
all this to the Bush tribe, and we went down to the boat and lunched.
Presently a smell of roast pork came drifting down on the wind. They had
been hungry and mad after their march, and they were cooking the taboo
pig. The interpreter grew as white as a Kaneka can; he knew something
would happen.

"Presently the Bush fellows came down to the boat, licking their lips.
There hadn't been much more than enough to go round, and they accepted
some of our grub, and took to it kindly.

"'Let's offer them some rum,' says Thompson; he never cruised without
plenty aboard. 'No, no,' says I; 'tea, give them tea.' But Thompson had
a keg of rum out, and a tin can, and served round some pretty stiff grog.
Now, would you believe it, these poor devils had never tasted spirits
before? Most backward race they were. But they took to the stuff, and
got pretty merry, till one of them tried to move back to the village. He
staggered up and down, and tumbled against rocks, and finally he lay flat
and held on tight. The others, most of them, were no better as soon as
they tried to move. A rare fright they were in! They began praying and
mumbling; praying, of all things, to the soul of the taboo pig! They
thought they were being punished for the awful sin they had committed in
eating him. The interpreter improved the occasion. He told them their
faults pre