tty roundly. Hadn't he warned them? Didn't they know the pig
was taboo? Did any good ever come of breaking a taboo? The soberer
fellows sneaked off into the bush, the others lay and snoozed till the
Coast tribe came out of hiding, and gave it to them pretty warm with
throwing sticks and the flat side of waddies. I guess the belief in
taboo won't die out of that Bush tribe in a hurry."

"It was like the companions of Odysseus devouring the oxen of the Sun," I
said.

"Very likely," replied the beach-comber. "Never heard of the parties.
They're superstitious beggars, these Kanekas. You've heard of buying a
thing 'for a song'? Well, I got my station for a whistle. They believe
that spirits twitter and whistle, and you'll hardly get them to go out at
night, even with a boiled potato in their hands, which they think good
against ghosts, for fear of hearing the bogies. So I just went
whistling, 'Bonny Dundee' at nights all round the location I fancied, and
after a week of that, not a nigger would go near it. They made it over
to me, gratis, with an address on my courage and fortitude. I gave them
some blankets in; and that's how real property used to change hands in
the Pacific."

Footnotes:

{1} From Wandering Sheep, the Bungletonian Missionary Record.

{6} 1884. Date unknown. Month probably June.

{23a} The original text of this prophecy is printed at the close of Mr.
Gowles's narrative.

{23b} It has been suggested to me that some travelled priest or conjurer
of this strange race may have met Europeans, seen hats, spectacles,
steamers, and so forth, and may have written the prophecy as a warning of
the dangers of our civilization. In that case the forgery was very
cunningly managed, as the document had every appearance of great age, and
the alarm of the priest was too natural to have been feigned.

{25} How terribly these words were afterwards to be interpreted, the
reader will learn in due time.

{30} I afterwards found it was blue smalt.

{74} I have never been able to understand Mr. Gowles's infatuation for
this stuck-up creature, who, I am sure, gave herself airs enough, as any
one may see.--MRS. GOWLES.

{76} This was the name of a native vintage.

{95} Mr. Gowles was an ardent Liberal, but at the time when he wrote,
the Union Jack had not been denounced by his great leader. We have no
doubt that, at a word from Mr. Gladstone, he would have sung, Home Rule,
Hibernia!--ED.