The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSouth-Sea Idyls

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSouth-Sea IdylsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: South-Sea IdylsAuthor: Charles Warren StoddardRelease date: December 7, 2012 [eBook #41573]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH-SEA IDYLS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: South-Sea IdylsAuthor: Charles Warren StoddardRelease date: December 7, 2012 [eBook #41573]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)

Title: South-Sea Idyls

Author: Charles Warren Stoddard

Release date: December 7, 2012 [eBook #41573]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Greg Bergquist, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://archive.org/details/americana)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH-SEA IDYLS ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, South-Sea Idyls, by Charles Warren Stoddard

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

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BOSTON:JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.1873.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD,in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co.,Cambridge.

PageIn the Cradle of the Deep7Chumming with a Savage.I.Kána-aná25II.How I converted my Cannibal43III.Barbarian Days57Taboo.—A Fête-Day in Tahiti80Joe of Lahaina112The Night-Dancers of Waipio128Pearl-Hunting in the Pomotous146The Last of the Great Navigator169A Canoe-Cruise in the Coral Sea184Under a Grass Roof197My South-Sea Show202The House of the Sun221The Chapel of the Palms240Kahéle259Love-Life in a Lanai283In a Transport300A Prodigal in Tahiti324

TO MY DEAR FRIEND ANTON ROMAN.

THE COCOA-TREE.Cast on the water by a careless hand,Day after day the winds persuaded me:Onward I drifted till a coral treeStayed me among its branches, where the sandGathered about me, and I slowly grew,Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.The sea-birds build their nests against my root,And eye my slender body's horny case.Widowed within this solitary placeInto the thankless sea I cast my fruit;Joyless I thrive, for no man may partakeOf all the store I bear and harvest for his sake.No more I heed the kisses of the morn;The harsh winds rob me of the life they gave;I watch my tattered shadow in the wave,And hourly droop and nod my crest forlorn,While all my fibres stiffen and grow numbBeck'ning the tardy ships, the ships that never come!

THE COCOA-TREE.

Cast on the water by a careless hand,Day after day the winds persuaded me:Onward I drifted till a coral treeStayed me among its branches, where the sandGathered about me, and I slowly grew,Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.The sea-birds build their nests against my root,And eye my slender body's horny case.Widowed within this solitary placeInto the thankless sea I cast my fruit;Joyless I thrive, for no man may partakeOf all the store I bear and harvest for his sake.No more I heed the kisses of the morn;The harsh winds rob me of the life they gave;I watch my tattered shadow in the wave,And hourly droop and nod my crest forlorn,While all my fibres stiffen and grow numbBeck'ning the tardy ships, the ships that never come!

The sea-birds build their nests against my root,And eye my slender body's horny case.Widowed within this solitary placeInto the thankless sea I cast my fruit;Joyless I thrive, for no man may partakeOf all the store I bear and harvest for his sake.

No more I heed the kisses of the morn;The harsh winds rob me of the life they gave;I watch my tattered shadow in the wave,And hourly droop and nod my crest forlorn,While all my fibres stiffen and grow numbBeck'ning the tardy ships, the ships that never come!

FORTY days in the great desert of the sea,—forty nights camped under cloud-canopies, with the salt dust of the waves drifting over us. Sometimes a Bedouin sail flashed for an hour upon the distant horizon, and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset, looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion, and our hearts sank back into the illimitable sea, breathing a long prayer for deliverance.

Once a green oasis blossomed before us,—a garden in perfect bloom, girded about with creaming waves; within its coral cincture pendulous boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs stole down upon us; above all, the triumphant palm-trees clashed their melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very gates of this paradise a changefulcurrent swept us onward, and the happy isle was buried in night and distance.

In many volumes of adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent condition, and, as far as we could judge, we had no reason to lose confidence in her. It was the gray weather that tried our patience and found us wanting; it was the unparalleled pitching of the ninety-ton schooner that disheartened and almost dismembered us. And then it was wasting time at sea. Why were we not long before at our journey's end? Why were we not threading the vales of some savage island, and reaping our rich reward of ferns and shells and gorgeous butterflies?

The sea rang its monotonous changes,—fair weather and foul, days like death itself, followed by days full of the revelations of new life, but mostly days of deadly dulness, when the sea was as unpoetical as an eternity of cold suds and blueing.

I cannot always understand the logical fitness of things, or, rather, I am at a loss to know why some things in life are so unfit and illogical. Of course, in our darkest hour, when we were gathered in the confines of the Petrel's diminutive cabin, it was our duty to sing psalms of hope and cheer, but we didn't. It was a time for mutual encouragement: very few of us were self-sustaining, and what was to be gained by our combining in unanimous despair?

Our weather-beaten skipper,—a thing of clay that seemed utterly incapable of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw,—the skipper sat, with barometer in hand, eying the fatal finger that pointed to our doom; the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn in the state of affairs, that was then by no means encouraging.

I happened to remember that there were some sealed letters to be read from time to time on the passage out, and it occurred to me that one of the times had come—perhaps the last and only—wherein I might break the remaining seals and receive a sort of parting visit from the fortunate friends on shore.

I opened one letter and read these prophetic lines: "Dear child,"—she was twice my age, and privileged to make a pet of me,—"dear child, I have a presentiment that we shall never meet again in the flesh."

That dear girl's intuition came near to being the death of me. I shuddered where I sat, overcome with remorse. It was enough that I had turned my back on her and sought consolation in the treacherous bosom of the ocean; that, having failed to find the spring of immortal life in human affection, I had packed up and emigrated, content to fly the ills I had in search of change; but that parting shot, below the water-line as it were,—that was more than I asked for, and something more than I could stomach. I returned to watch with the rest of our little company, who clung about the table with a pitiful sense of momentary security, and an expression of pathetic condolence on every countenance, as though each was sitting out the last hours of the others.

Our particular bane that night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete as an encyclopædia. This "old man of the sea" spun his tempestuous yarn with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been air-tight,—it was as close as possible,—yet we heard the shrieking of the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing stricken with sudden fear; we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst,and let us drop into its vast, black chasm, where, in Cimmerian darkness, we should be entombed forever.

The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid; as I now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with almost fatal success.

I had still one letter left, one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and fruitful; out over the fearful deluge this leaf was born to me in the return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph. I could now silence the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its trumpets.

I read:—

"Beyond the parting and the meetingI shall be soon;Beyond the farewell and the greeting,Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,I shall be soon."

I paused. A night black with croaking ravens,brooding over a slimy hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed,—that was the sort of picture that rose before me. I looked further for a crumb of comfort:—

"Beyond the gathering and the strewing,I shall be soon;Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,Beyond the coming and the going,I shall be soon."

A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column; the marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped full of horror and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.

Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove to" in the teeth of the gale.

The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months; who saw all his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the stanch French brigMouette, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a drop of water remained; then their tongues were loosened, and they railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate. One man alone was speechless,—a Spaniard, with a wicked light in his eye, and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than once.

When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various projects for the capture of them. Tough as a shark is, they would willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfulsof the same. Somehow, though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and divided equally among the crew. Some ate a little, and reserved the rest for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others, who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.

When the food was all gone save a few mouthfuls that one meagre eater had hoarded to the last, the Spaniard resolved to secure a morsel at the risk of his life. It had been a point of honor with the men to observe sacredly the right of ownership, and any breach of confidence would have been considered unpardonable. At night, when the watch was sleeping, the Spaniard cautiously removed the last mouthful of shark hidden in the pocket of his mate, but was immediately detected and accused of theft. He at once grew desperate, struck at the poor wretch whom he had robbed, missed his blow, and fell headlong from the narrow platform in the foretop, and was lost in the sea. It was the first scene in the mournful tragedy about to be enacted on that limited stage.

There was less disturbance after the disappearance of the Spaniard. The spirits of the doomedsailors seemed broken; in fact, the captain was the only one whose courage was noteworthy, and it was his indomitable will that ultimately saved him.

One by one the minds of the miserable men gave way; they became peevish or delirious, and then died horribly. Two, who had been mates for many voyages in the seas north and south, vanished mysteriously in the night; no one could tell where they went or in what manner, though they seemed to have gone together.

Somehow, these famishing sailors seemed to feel assured that their captain would be saved; they were as confident of their own doom, and to him they intrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around him,—for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture,—and reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God can inflict upon me"; and then he paused, overcome with emotion. But another took up the refrain: "I could have done much good, but I would not, and now it is too late." And a third cried out in his despair, "I have committed unpardonable sins, and there is no hope for me. Lord Jesus, have mercy!" The youngest of these perishing souls was a mere lad; he, too, accused himself bitterly. He began his story atthe beginning, and continued it from time to time as the spirit of revelation moved him; scarcely an incident, however insignificant, escaped him in his pitiless retrospect. O, the keen agony of that boy's recital! more cruel than hunger or thirst, and in comparison with which physical torture would have seemed merciful and any death a blessing.

While the luckless Mouette drifted aimlessly about, driven slowly onward by varying winds under a cheerless sky, sickness visited them. Some were stricken with scurvy; some had lost the use of their limbs and lay helpless, moaning and weeping hour after hour; vermin devoured them; and when their garments were removed, and cleansed in the salt water, there was scarcely sunshine enough to dry them before night, and they were put on again, damp, stiffened with salt, and shrunken so as to cripple the wearers, who were all blistered and covered with boils. The nights were bitter cold: sometimes the icy moon looked down upon them; sometimes the bosom of an electric cloud burst over them, and they were enveloped for a moment in a sheet of flame. Sharks lingered about them, waiting to feed upon the unhappy ones who fell into the sea overcome with physical exhaustion, or who cast themselves from that dizzy scaffold, unable longer to endure the horrors of lingering death. Flocks of sea-fowl hovered over them; the hull of the Mouette was crusted withbarnacles; long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping seams; myriads of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds, sporting gleefully; schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the sea into foam; sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them. Everywhere was the stir of jubilant life,—everywhere but under the tattered awning stretched in the foretop of the Mouette.

Days and weeks dragged on. When the captain would waken from his sleep,—which was not always at night, however, for the nights were miserably cold and sleepless,—when he wakened he would call the roll. Perhaps some one made no answer; then he would reach forth and touch the speechless body and find it dead. He had not strength now to bury the corpses in the sea's sepulchre; he had not strength even to partake of the unholy feast of the inanimate flesh. He lay there in the midst of pestilence; and at night, under the merciful veil of darkness, the fowls of the air gathered about him and bore away their trophy of corruption.

By and by there were but two left of all that suffering crew,—the captain and the boy,—and these two clung together like ghosts, defying mortality. They strove to be patient and hopeful: if they could not eat, they could drink, for the nights were dewy, and sometimes a mist covered them,—a mist so dense it seemed almostto drip from the rags that poorly sheltered them. A cord was attached to the shrouds, the end of it carefully laid in the mouth of a bottle slung in the rigging. Down the thin cord slid occasional drops; one by one they stole into the bottle, and by morning there was a spoonful of water to moisten those parched lips,—sweet, crystal drops, more blessed than tears, fortheyare salt; more precious than pearls. A thousand prayers of gratitude seemed hardly to quiet the souls of the lingering ones for that great charity of Heaven.

There came a day when the hearts of God's angels must have bled for the suffering ones. The breeze was fresh and fair; the sea tossed gayly its foam-crested waves; sea-birds soared in wider circles; and the clouds shook out their fleecy folds, through which the sunlight streamed in grateful warmth. The two ghosts were talking, as ever, of home, of earth, of land. Land,—land anywhere, so that it were solid and broad. O, to pace again a whole league without turning! O, to pause in the shadow of some living tree! To drink of some stream whose waters flowed continually; flowed, though you drank of them with the awful thirst of one who has been denied water for weeks and and weeks and weeks, for three whole months,—an eternity, as it seemed to them.

Then they pictured life as it might be if God permitted them to return to earth once more. They would pace K—— Street at noon, and revisit that capital restaurant where many a time they had feasted, though in those days they were unknown to one another; they would call for coffee, and this dish and that dish, and a whole bill of fare, the thought of which made their feverish palates grow moist again. They would meet friends whom they had never loved as they now loved them; they would reconcile old feuds and forgive everybody everything; they held imaginary conversations, and found life very beautiful and greatly to be desired; and somehow they would get back to the littlecaféand there begin eating again, and with a relish that brought the savory tastes and smells vividly before them, and their lips would move and the impalpable morsels roll sweetly over their tongues.

It had become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes; never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a coming! how it budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that was transformed suddenly into a bark bearing down upon them! Almost within hail it stayed its course, the canvas fluttered in the wind; the dark hull slowly rose and fell upon the water; figures moved to and fro,—men, living and breathing men! Then the ghosts staggered to their feet and cried to God for mercy. Then they wavedtheir arms, and beat their breasts, and lifted up their imploring voices, beseeching deliverance out of that horrible bondage. Tears coursed down their hollow cheeks, their limbs quaked, their breath failed them; they sank back in despair, speechless and forsaken.

Why did they faint in the hour of deliverance when that narrow chasm was all that separated them from renewed life? Because the bark spread out her great white wings and soared away, hearing not the faint voices, seeing not the thin shadows that haunted that drifting wreck. The forsaken ones looked out from their eyrie, and watched the lessening sail until sight failed them; and then the lad, with one wild cry, leaped toward the speeding bark, and was swallowed up in the sea.

Alone in a wilderness of waters. Alone, without compass or rudder, borne on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures; across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy shall not be broken for all time.

O pitiless Nature! thy irrevocable laws argue sore sacrifice in the waste places of God's universe!...

The Petrel gave a tremendous lurch, that sent two or three of us into the lee corners of the cabin; a sea broke over us, bursting in the companion-hatch, and half filling our small and insecure retreat. The swinging lamp was thrown from its socket and extinguished; we were enveloped in pitch darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a moment of awful silence; we could not tell whether the light of day would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the Petrel rose once more upon the watery hill-tops and shook herself free of the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be riding more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did the captain of the Mouette live to tell the tale?"

Yes, he did. God sent a messenger into the lonesome deep, where the miserable man was found insensible, with eyes wide open against the sunlight, and lips shrunken apart,—a hideous, breathing corpse. When he was lifted in the arms of the brave fellows who had gone to his rescue, he cried, "Great God! am I saved?" as though he couldn't believe it when it was true; then he fainted, and was nursed through a long delirium, and was at last restored to health and home and happiness.

Our cabin-boy managed to fish up the lamp, and after a little we were illuminated; the agile swab soon sponged out the cabin, and we resumed our tedious watch for dawn and fairer weather.

Somehow, my mind brooded over the solitary wreck that was drifting about the sea. I could fancy the rotten timbers of the Mouette clinging together, by a miracle, until the Ancient Mariner was taken away from her, and then, when she was alone again, with nothing whatever in sight but blank blue sea and blank blue sky, she lay for an hour or so, bearded with shaggy sea-moss and looking about a thousand years old. Suddenly it occurred to her that her time had come,—that she had outlived her usefulness, and might as well go to pieces at once. So she yawned in all her timbers, and the sea reached up over her, and laid hold of her masts, and seemed to be slowly drawing her down into its bosom. There was not an audible sound, and scarcely a ripple upon the water; but when the waves had climbed into the foretop, there was a clamor of affrighted birds, and a myriad bubbles shot up to the surface, where a few waifs floated and whirled about for a moment. It was all that marked the spot where the Mouette went down to her eternal rest.

"Ha, ha!" cried our skipper, with something almost like a change of expression on his mahogany countenance, "the barometer is rising!" and sure enough it was. In two hours the Petrel acted like a different craft entirely, and by and by came daybreak, and after that the sea went down, down, down, into a deep, dead calm, when all the elements seemed to have gone to sleep after their furiouswarfare. Like half-drowned flies we crawled out of the close, ill-smelling cabin to dry ourselves in the sun: there, on the steaming deck of the schooner, we found new life, and in the hope that dawned with it we grew lusty and jovial.

Such a flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.

Flat-headed gonies sat high on the water, piping their querulous note as they tugged at something edible, a dozen of them entering into the domestic difficulty: one after another would desert the cause, run a little way over the sea to get a good start, leap heavily into the air, sail about for a few minutes, and then drop back on the sea, feet-foremost, and skate for a yard or two, making a white mark and a pleasant sound as it slid over the water.

The exquisite nautilus floated past us, with its gauzy sail set, looking like a thin slice out of a soap-bubble; the strange anemone laid its pale, sensitive petals on the lips of the wave and panted in ecstasy; the Petrel rocked softly, swinging her idle canvas in the sun; we heard the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest seasound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and tarred down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned; the man at the wheel struck two bells,—it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much longer. Then came the purplest twilight; and then the sky blossomed all over with the biggest, ripest, goldenest stars,—such stars as hang like fruits in sun-fed orchards; such stars as lay a track of fire in the sea; such stars as rise and set over mountains and beyond low green capes, like young moons, every one of them; and I conjured up my spells of savage enchantment, my blessed islands, my reefs baptized with silver spray; I saw the broad fan-leaves of the banana droop in the motionless air, and through the tropical night the palms aspired heavenward, while I lay dreaming my sea-dream in the cradle of the deep.

THERE was a little brown rain-cloud, that blew over in about three minutes; and Bolabola's thatched hut was dry as a haystack in less than half that time. Those tropical sprays are not much, anyhow; so I lounged down into the banana-patch, for I thought I saw something white there, something white and fluttering, moving about. I knew pretty well what it was, and didn't go after it on an uncertainty.

The Doctor looked savage. Whenever he slung those saddle-bags over his left shoulder, and swung his right arm clean out from his body, like the regulator of a steam-engine, you might know that his steam was pretty well up. I turned to look back, as he was strapping up his beast of burden till the poor animal's body was positively waspish; then he climbed into his saddle, and sullenly plunged down the trail toward the precipice, and never said "Good by," or "God bless you," or any of those harmless tags that come inso well when you don't know how to cut off your last words.

I solemnly declare, and this without malice, the Doctor was perfectly savage.

Now, do you know what demoralized that Doctor? how we came to a misunderstanding? or why we parted company? It was simply because here was a glorious valley, inhabited by a mild, half-civilized people, who seemed to love me at first sight. I don't believe I disliked them, either. Well! they asked me to stop with them, and I felt just like it. I wanted to stop and be natural; but the Doctor thought otherwise of my intentions; and that was the origin of the row.

The next thing I knew, the Doctor had got up the great precipice, and I was quite alone with two hundred dusky fellows, only two of whom could speak a syllable of English, and I the sole representative of the superior white within twenty miles. Alone with cannibals,—perhaps they were cannibals. They had magnificent teeth, at any rate, and could bite through an inch and a half sugar-cane, and not break a jaw.

For the first time that summer I began to moralize a little. Was it best to have kicked against the Doctor's judgment? Perhaps not! But it is best to be careful how you begin to moralize too early; you deprive yourself of a great deal of fun in that way. If you want to do anything particularly, I should advise you to do it, and then be sufficiently sorry to make it all square.

I'm not so sure that I was wrong, after all. Fate, or the Doctor, or something else, brought me first to this loveliest of valleys, so shut out from everything but itself that there were no temptations which might not be satisfied. Well! here, as I was looking about at the singular loveliness of the place,—you know this was my first glimpse of its abrupt walls, hung with tapestries of fern and clambering convolvulus; at one end two exquisite waterfalls, rivalling one another in whiteness and airiness, at the other the sea, the real South Sea, breaking and foaming over a genuine reef, and even rippling the placid current of the river that slipped quietly down to its embracing tide from the deep basins at these waterfalls,—right in the midst of all this, before I had been ten minutes in the valley, I saw a straw hat, bound with wreaths of fern andmaile; under it a snow-white garment, rather short all around, low in the neck, and with no sleeves whatever.

There was no sex to that garment; it was the spontaneous offspring of a scant material and a large necessity. I'd seen plenty of that sort of thing, but never upon a model like this, so entirely tropical,—almost Oriental. As this singular phenomenon made directly for me, and, having come within reach, there stopped and stayed, I asked its name, using one of my seven stock phrases for the purpose; I found it was called Kána-aná. Down it went into my note-book; forI knew I was to have an experience with this young scion of a race of chiefs. Sure enough, I have had it. He continued to regard me steadily, without embarrassment. He seated himself before me; I felt myself at the mercy of one whose calm analysis was questioning every motive of my soul. This sage inquirer was, perhaps, sixteen years of age. His eye was so earnest and so honest, I could return his look. I saw a round, full, rather girlish face; lips ripe and expressive, not quite so sensual as those of most of his race; not a bad nose, by any means; eyes perfectly glorious,—regular almonds,—with the mythical lashes "that sweep," etc., etc. The smile which presently transfigured his face was of the nature that flatters you into submission against your will.

Having weighed me in his balance,—and you may be sure his instincts didn't cheat him; they don't do that sort of thing,—he placed his two hands on my two knees, and declared, "I was his best friend, as he was mine; I must come at once to his house, and there live always with him." What could I do but go? He pointed me to his lodge across the river, saying, "There was his home and mine." By this time, mynativewithout a master was quite exhausted. I wonder what would have happened if some one hadn't come to my rescue, just at that moment of trial, with a fresh vocabulary? As it was, we settled the matter at once. This was our little plan,—an entirely private arrangement between Kána-aná and myself: I was to leave with the Doctor in an hour; but, at the expiration of a week we should both return hither; then I would stop with him, and the Doctor could go his way.

There was an immense amount of secrecy, and many vows, and I was almost crying, when the Doctor hurried me up that terrible precipice, and we lost sight of the beautiful valley. Kána-aná swore he would watch continually for my return, and I vowed I'd hurry back; and so we parted. Looking down from the heights, I thought I could distinguish his white garment; at any rate, I knew the little fellow was somewhere about, feeling as miserably as I felt,—and nobody has any business to feel worse. How many times I thought of him through the week! I was always wondering if he still thought of me. I had found those natives to be impulsive, demonstrative, and, I feared, inconstant. Yet why should he forget me, having so little to remember in his idle life, while I could still think of him, and put aside a hundred pleasant memories for his sake? The whole island was a delight to me. I often wondered if I should ever again behold such a series of valleys, hills, and highlands in so small a compass. That land is a world in miniature, the dearest spot of which, to me, was that secluded valley; for there was a young soul watching for my return.

That was rather a slow week for me, but itended finally; and just at sunset, on the day appointed, the Doctor and I found ourselves back on the edge of the valley. I looked all up and down its green expanse, regarding every living creature, in the hope of discovering Kána-aná in the attitude of the watcher. I let the Doctor ride ahead of me on the trail to Bolabola's hut, and it was quite in the twilight when I heard the approach of a swift horseman. I turned, and at that moment there was a collision of two constitutions that were just fitted for one another; and all the doubts and apprehensions of the week just over were indignantly dismissed, for Kána-aná and I were one and inseparable, which was perfectly satisfactory to both parties!

The plot, which had been thickening all the week, culminated then, much to the disgust of the Doctor, who had kept his watchful eye upon me all these days—to my advantage, as he supposed. There was no disguising our project any longer, so I out with it as mildly as possible. "There was a dear fellow here," I said, "who loved me, and wanted me to live with him; all his people wanted me to stop, also; his mother and his grandmother had specially desired it. They didn't care for money; they had much love for me, and therefore implored me to stay a little. Then the valley was most beautiful; I was tired; after our hard riding, I needed rest; his mother and his grandmother assured me that I needed rest. Now, why not let me rest here awhile?"

The Doctor looked very grave. I knew that he misunderstood me,—placed a wrong interpretation upon my motives; the worse for him, I say. He tried to talk me over to the paths of virtue and propriety; but I wouldn't be talked over. Then the final blast was blown; war was declared at once. The Doctor never spoke again, but to abuse me; and off he rode in high dudgeon, and the sun kept going down on his wrath. Thereupon I renounced all the follies of this world, actually hating civilization, and feeling entirely above the formalities of society. I resolved on the spot to be a barbarian, and, perhaps, dwell for ever and ever in this secluded spot. And here I am back to the beginning of this story, just after the shower at Bolabola's hut, as the Doctor rode off alone and in anger.

That resolution was considerable for me to make. I found, by the time the Doctor was out of sight and I was quite alone, with the natives regarding me so curiously, that I was very tired indeed. So Kána-aná brought up his horse, got me on to it in some way or other, and mounted behind me to pilot the animal and sustain me in my first bareback act. Over the sand we went, and through the river to his hut, where I was taken in, fed, and petted in every possible way, and finally put to bed, where Kána-aná monopolized me, growling in true savage fashion if any one came near me. I didn't sleep much, after all. Ithink I must have been excited. I thought how strangely I was situated: alone in a wilderness, among barbarians; my bosom friend, who was hugging me like a young bear, not able to speak one syllable of English, and I very shaky on a few bad phrases in his tongue. We two lay upon an enormous old-fashioned bed with high posts,—very high they seemed to me in the dim rushlight. The natives always burn a small light after dark; some superstition or other prompts it. The bed, well stocked with pillows, or cushions, of various sizes, covered with bright-colored chintz, was hung about with numerous shawls, so that I might be dreadfully modest behind them. It was quite a grand affair, gotten up expressly for my benefit. The rest of the house—all in one room, as usual—was covered with mats, on which various recumbent forms and several individual snores betrayed the proximity of Kána-aná's relatives. How queer the whole atmosphere of the place was! The heavy beams of the house were of some rare wood, which, being polished, looked like colossal sticks of peanut candy. Slender canes were bound across this framework, and the soft, dried grass of the meadows was braided over it,—all completing our tenement, and making it as fresh and sweet as new-mown hay.

The natives have a passion for perfumes. Little bunches of sweet-smelling herbs hung in the peak of the roof, and wreaths of fragrant berrieswere strung in various parts of the house. I found our bedposts festooned with them in the morning. O, that bed! It might have come from England in the Elizabethan era and been wrecked off the coast; hence the mystery of its presence. It was big enough for a Mormon. There was a little opening in the room opposite our bed; you might call it a window, I suppose. The sun, shining through it, made our tent of shawls perfectly gorgeous in crimson light, barred and starred with gold. I lifted our bed-curtain, and watched the rocks through this window,—the shining rocks, with the sea leaping above them in the sun. There were cocoa-palms so slender they seemed to cast no shadow, while their fringed leaves glistened like frost-work as the sun glanced over them. A bit of cliff, also, remote and misty, running far into the sea, was just visible from my pyramid of pillows. I wondered what more I could ask for to delight the eye. Kána-aná was still asleep, but he never let loose his hold on me, as though he feared his pale-faced friend would fade away from him. He lay close by me. His sleek figure, supple and graceful in repose, was the embodiment of free, untrammelled youth. You who are brought up under cover know nothing of its luxuriousness. How I longed to take him over the sea with me, and show him something of life as we find it. Thinking upon it, I dropped off into one of those delicious morning naps. I awokeagain presently; my companion-in-arms was the occasion this time. He had awakened, stolen softly away, resumed his single garment,—said garment and all others he considered superfluous after dark,—and had prepared for me, with his own hands, a breakfast, which he now declared to me, in violent and suggestive pantomime, was all ready to be eaten. It was not a bad bill of fare,—fresh fish, taro, poe, and goat's milk. I ate as well as I could, under the circumstances. I found that Robinson Crusoe must have had some tedious rehearsals before he acquired that perfect resignation to Providence which delights us in book form. There was a veritable and most unexpected table-cloth for me alone. I do not presume to question the nature of its miraculous appearance. Dishes there were,—dishes, if you're not particular as to shape or completeness; forks, with a prong or two,—a bent and abbreviated prong or two; knives that had survived their handles; and one solitary spoon. All these were tributes of the too generous people, who, for the first time in their lives, were at the inconvenience of entertaining a distinguished stranger. Hence this reckless display of tableware. I ate as well as I could, but surely not enough to satisfy my crony; for, when I had finished eating, he sat about two hours in deep and depressing silence, at the expiration of which time he suddenly darted off on his bareback steed and was gone till dark, when he returned with a fat mutton slung over his animal. Now, mutton doesn't grow wild thereabout, neither were his relatives shepherds; consequently, in eating, I asked no questions for conscience' sake.

The series of entertainments offered me were such as the little valley had not known for years: canoe-rides up and down the winding stream; bathings in the sea and in the river, and in every possible bit of water, at all possible hours; expeditions into the recesses of the mountains, to the waterfalls that plunged into cool basins of fern and cresses, and to the orange grove through acres and acres of guava orchards; some climbings up the precipices; goat hunting, once or twice, as far as a solitary cavern, said to be haunted,—these tramps always by daylight; then a new course of bathings and sailings, interspersed with monotonous singing and occasional smokes under the eaves of the hut at evening.

If it is a question how long a man may withstand the seductions of nature, and the consolations and conveniences of the state of nature, I have solved it in one case; for I was as natural as possible in about three days.

I wonder if I was growing to feel more at home, or more hungry, that I found an appetite at last equal to any table that was offered me! Chicken was added to my already bountiful rations, nicely cooked by being swathed in a broad, succulentleaf, and roasted or steeped in hot ashes. I ate it with my fingers, using the leaf for a platter.

Almost every day something new was offered at the door for my edification. Now, a net full of large guavas or mangoes, or a sack of leaves crammed with most delicious oranges from the mountains, that seemed to have absorbed the very dew of heaven, they were so fresh and sweet. Immense lemons perfumed the house, waiting to make me a capital drink. Those superb citrons, with their rough, golden crusts, refreshed me. Cocoa-nuts were heaped at the door; and yams, grown miles away, were sent for, so that I might be satisfied. All these additions to my table were the result of long and vigorous arguments between the respective heads of the house. I detected trouble and anxiety in their expressive faces. I picked out a word, here and there, which betrayed their secret sorrow. No assertions, no remonstrances on my part, had the slightest effect upon the poor souls, who believed I was starving. Eat I must, at all hours and in all places; and eat, moreover, before they would touch a mouthful. So Nature teaches her children a hospitality which all the arts of the capital cannot affect.

I wonder what it was that finally made me restless and eager to see new faces! Perhaps my unhappy disposition, that urged me thither, and then lured me back to the pride of life and the glory of the world. Certain I am that Kána-aná neverwearied me with his attentions, though they were incessant. Day and night he was by me. When he was silent, I knew he was conceiving some surprise in the shape of a new fruit, or a new view to beguile me. I was, indeed, beguiled; I was growing to like the little heathen altogether too well. What should I do when I was at last compelled to return out of my seclusion, and find no soul so faithful and loving in all the earth beside? Day by day this thought grew upon me, and with it I realized the necessity of a speedy departure.

There were those in the world I could still remember with that exquisitely painful pleasure that is the secret of true love. Those still voices seemed incessantly calling me, and something in my heart answered them of its own accord. How strangely idle the days had grown! We used to lie by the hour—Kána-aná and I—watching a strip of sand on which a wild poppy was nodding in the wind. This poppy seemed to me typical of their life in the quiet valley. Living only to occupy so much space in the universe, it buds, blossoms, goes to seed, dies, and is forgotten.

These natives do not even distinguish the memory of their great dead, if they ever had any. It was the legend of some mythical god that Kána-aná told me, and of which I could not understand a twentieth part; a god whose triumphs were achieved in an age beyond the comprehension of the very people who are delivering its story,by word of mouth, from generation to generation. Watching the sea was a great source of amusement with us. I discovered in our long watches that there is a very complicated and magnificent rhythm in its solemn song. This wave that breaks upon the shore is the heaviest of a series that preceded it; and these are greater and less, alternately, every fifteen or twenty minutes. Over this dual impulse the tides prevail, while through the year there is a variation in their rise and fall. What an intricate and wonderful mechanism regulates and repairs all this!

There was an entertainment in watching a particular cliff, in a peculiar light, at a certain hour, and finding soon enough that change visited even that hidden quarter of the globe. The exquisite perfection of this moment, for instance, is not again repeated on to-morrow, or the day after, but in its stead appears some new tint or picture, which, perhaps, does not satisfy like this. That was the most distressing disappointment that came upon us there. I used to spend half an hour in idly observing the splendid curtains of our bed swing in the light air from the sea; and I have speculated for days upon the probable destiny awaiting one of those superb spiders, with a tremendous stomach and a striped waistcoat, looking a century old, as he clung tenaciously to the fringes of our canopy.

We had fitful spells of conversation upon sometrivial theme, after long intervals of intense silence. We began to develop symptoms of imbecility. There was laughter at the least occurrence, though quite barren of humor; also, eating and drinking to pass the time; bathing to make one's self cool, after the heat and drowsiness of the day. So life flowed out in an unruffled current, and so the prodigal lived riotously and wasted his substance. There came a day when we promised ourselves an actual occurrence in our Crusoe life. Some one had seen a floating object far out at sea. It might be a boat adrift; and, in truth, it looked very like a boat. Two or three canoes darted off through the surf to the rescue, while we gathered on the rocks, watching and ruminating. It was long before the rescuers returned, and then they came empty-handed. It was only a log after all, drifted, probably, from America. We talked it all over, there by the shore, and went home to renew the subject; it lasted us a week or more, and we kept harping upon it till that log—drifting slowly, O how slowly! from the far mainland to our island—seemed almost to overpower me with a sense of the unutterable loneliness of its voyage. I used to lie and think about it, and get very solemn, indeed; then Kána-aná would think of some fresh appetizer or other, and try to make me merry with good feeding. Again and again he would come with a delicious banana to the bed where Iwas lying, and insist upon my gorging myself, when I had but barely recovered from a late orgie of fruit, flesh, or fowl. He would mesmerize me into a most refreshing sleep with a prolonged and pleasing manipulation. It was a reminiscence of the baths of Stamboul not to be withstood. From this sleep I would presently be wakened by Kána-aná's performance upon a rude sort of harp, that gave out a weird and eccentric music. The mouth being applied to the instrument, words were pronounced in a guttural voice, while the fingers twanged the strings in measure. It was a flow of monotones, shaped into legends and lyrics. I liked it amazingly; all the better, perhaps, that it was as good as Greek to me, for I understood it as little as I understood the strange and persuasive silence of that beloved place, which seemed slowly but surely weaving a spell of enchantment about me. I resolved to desert peremptorily, and managed to hire a canoe and a couple of natives, to cross the channel with me. There were other reasons for this prompt action.

Hour by hour I was beginning to realize one of the inevitable results of Time. My boots were giving out; their best sides were the uppers, and their soles had about left them. As I walked, I could no longer disguise this pitiful fact. It was getting hard on me, especially in the gravel. Yet, regularly each morning, my pieces of boot were carefully oiled; then rubbed, or petted, or coaxedinto some sort of a polish, which was a labor of love. O Kána-aná! how could you wring my soul with those touching offices of friendship!—-those kindnesses unfailing, unsurpassed!

Having resolved to sail early in the morning, before the drowsy citizens of the valley had fairly shaken the dew out of their forelocks, all that day—my last with Kána-aná—I breathed about me silent benedictions and farewells. I could not begin to do enough for Kána-aná, who was, more than ever, devoted to me. He almost seemed to suspect our sudden separation, for he clung to me with a sort of subdued desperation. That was the day he took from his head his hat—a very neat one, plaited by his mother—insisting that I should wear it (mine was quite in tatters), while he went bareheaded in the sun. That hat hangs in my room now, the only tangible relic of my prodigal days. My plan was to steal off at dawn, while he slept; to awaken my native crew, and escape to sea before my absence was detected. I dared not trust a parting with him, before the eyes of the valley. Well, I managed to wake and rouse my sailor boys. To tell the truth, I didn't sleep a wink that night. We launched the canoe, entered, put off, and had safely mounted the second big roller just as it broke under us with terrific power, when I heard a shrill cry above the roar of the waters. I knew the voice and its import. There was Kána-aná rushing madly towardus; he had discovered all, and couldn't even wait for that white garment, but ran after us like one gone daft, and plunged into the cold sea, calling my name, over and over, as he fought the breakers. I urged the natives forward. I knew if he overtook us, I should never be able to escape again. We fairly flew over the water. I saw him rise and fall with the swell, looking like a seal; for it was his second nature, this surf-swimming. I believe in my heart I wished the paddles would break or the canoe split on the reef, though all the time I was urging the rascals forward; and they, like stupids, took me at my word. They couldn't break a paddle, or get on the reef, or have any sort of an accident. Presently we rounded the headland,—the same hazy point I used to watch from the grass house, through the little window, of a sunshiny morning. There we lost sight of the valley and the grass house, and everything that was associated with the past,—but that was nothing. We lost sight of the little sea-god, Kána-aná, shaking the spray from his forehead like a porpoise; and this was all in all. I didn't care for anything else after that, or anybody else, either. I went straight home and got civilized again, or partly so, at least. I've never seen the Doctor since, and never want to. He had no business to take me there, or leave me there. I couldn't make up my mind to stay; yet I'm always dying to go back again.

So I grew tired over my husks. I arose andwent unto my father. I wanted to finish up the Prodigal business. I ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him, and said unto him, "Father,ifI have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, I'm afraid I don't care much. Don't kill anything. I don't want any calf. Take back the ring, I don't deserve it; for I'd give more this minute to see that dear, little, velvet-skinned, coffee-colored Kána-aná, than anything else in the wide world,—because he hates business, and so do I. He's a regular brick, father, moulded of the purest clay, and baked in God's sunshine. He's about half sunshine himself; and, above all others, and more than any one else ever can, he loved your Prodigal."

When people began asking me queer questions about my chum Kána-aná, some of them even hinting that "he might possibly have been a girl all the time," I resolved to send down for him, and settle the matter at once. I knew he was not a girl, and I thought I should like to show him some American hospitality, and perhaps convert him before I sent him back again.

I could teach him to dress, you know; to say a very good thing to your face, and a very bad one at your back; to sleep well in church, and rejoice duly when the preacher got at last to the "Amen." I might do all this for his soul's sake; but I wanted more to see how the little fellow was getting on. I missed him so terribly,—his honest way of showing likes and dislikes; his confidence in his intuitions and fidelity to his friends; and those quaint manners of his, so different from anything in vogue this side of the waters.

That is what I remarked when I got home again, and found myself growing as practical and prosy as ever. I awoke no kindred chord in the family bosom. On the contrary, they all said, "It was no use to think of it: no good could come out of Nazareth." The idea of a heathen and his abominable idolatry being countenanced in the sanctity of a Christian home was too dreadful for anything. But I believed some good might come out of Nazareth, and I believed that, when it did come, it was the genuine article, worth hunting for, surely. I thought it all over soberly, finally resolving to do a little missionary work on my own account. So I wrote to the Colonel of the Royal Guards, who knows everybody and has immense influence everywhere, begging him to catch Kána-aná, when his folks weren't looking, and send him to my address, marked C. O. D., for I was just dying to see him. That was how Itrapped my little heathen and began to be a missionary, all by myself.

I informed the Colonel it was a case of life and death, and he seemed to realize it, for he managed to get Kána-aná away from his distressed relatives (their name is legion, and they live all over the island), fit him out inrealclothing,—the poor little wretch had to be dressed, you know; we all do it in this country,—then he packed him up and shipped him, care of the captain of the bark S——. When he arrived, I took him right to my room and began my missionary work. I tried to make all the people love him, but I'm afraid they found it hard work. He wasn't half so interesting up here anyhow! I seemed to have been regarding him through chromatic glasses, which glasses being suddenly removed, I found a little, dark-skinned savage, whose clothes fitted him horribly, and appeared to have no business there. Boots about twice too long, the toes being heavily charged with wadding; in fact, he looked perfectly miserable, and I've no doubt he felt so. How he had been studying English on the voyage up! He wanted to be a great linguist, and had begun in good earnest. He said "good mornin'" as boldly as possible about sevenP. M., and invariably spoke of the women of America as "him." He had an insane desire to spell, and started spelling-matches with everybody, at the most inappropriate hours and inconvenient places. He invariablyspelled God d-o-g; when duly corrected,—thus, G-o-d,—he would triumphantly shout,dog. He jumped at these irreverent conclusions about twenty times a day.

What an experience I had, educating my little savage! Walking him in the street by the hour; answering questions on all possible topics; spelling up and down the blocks; spelling from the centre of the city to the suburbs and back again, and around it; spelling one another at spelling,—two latter-day peripatetics on dress parade, passing to and fro in high and serene strata of philosophy, alike unconscious of the rudely gazing and insolent citizens, or the tedious calls of labor. A spell was over us: we ran into all sorts of people, and trod on many a corn, loafing about in this way. Some of the victims objected in harsh and sinful language. I found Kána-aná had so far advanced in the acquirement of our mellifluous tongue as to be very successful in returning their salutes. I had the greatest difficulty in convincing him of the enormity of his error. The little convert thought it was our mode of greeting strangers, equivalent to their more graceful and poetic password,Aloha, "Love to you."

My little cannibal wasn't easily accustomed to his new restraints, such as clothes, manners, and forbidden water-privileges. He several times started on his daily pilgrimage without his hat; once or twice, to save time, put his coat on nexthis skin; and though I finally so far conquered him as to be sure that his shirt would be worn on the inside instead of the outside of his trousers (this he considered a great waste of material), I was in constant terror of his suddenly disrobing in the street and plunging into the first water we came to,—which barbarous act would have insured his immediate arrest, perhaps confinement; and that would have been the next thing to death in his case.

So we perambulated the streets and the suburbs, daily growing into each other's grace; and I was thinking of the propriety of instituting a series of more extended excursions, when I began to realize that my guest was losing interest in our wonderful city and the possible magnitude of her future.

He grew silent and melancholy; he quit spelling entirely, or only indulged in rare and fitful (I am pained to add, fruitless) attempts at spelling God in the orthodox fashion. It seemed almost as though I had missed my calling; certainly, I was hardly successful as a missionary.

The circus failed to revive him; the beauty of our young women he regarded without interest. He was less devout than at first, when he used to insist upon entering every church we came to and sitting a few moments, though frequently we were the sole occupants of the building. He would steal away into remote corners of the house, andbe gone for hours. Twice or three times I discovered him in a dark closet,in puris naturalibus, toying with a singular shell strung upon a feather chain. The feathers of the chain I recognized as those of a strange bird held as sacred among his people. I began to suspect the occasion of his malady: he believed himself bewitched or accursed of some one,—a common superstition with the dark races. This revelation filled me with alarm; for he would think nothing of lying down to die under the impression that it was his fate, and no medicine under the heaven could touch him further.

I began telling him of my discovery, begging his secret from him. In vain I besought him. "It was his trouble; he must go back!" I told him he should go back as soon as possible; that we would look for ourselves, and see when a vessel was to sail again. I took him among the wharves, visiting, in turn, nearly all the shipping moored there. How he lingered about them, letting his eyes wander over the still bay into the mellow hazes that sometimes visit our brown and dusty hills!

His nature seemed to find an affinity in the tranquil tides, the far-sweeping distances, the alluring outlines of the coast, where it was blended with the sea-line in the ever-mysterious horizon. After these visitations, he seemed loath to return again among houses and people; they oppressed and suffocated him.

One day, as we were wending our way to thecity front, we passed a specimen of grotesque carving, in front of a tobacconist's establishment. Kána-aná stood eying the painted model for a moment, and then, to the amazement and amusement of the tobacconist and one or two bystanders, fell upon his knees before it, and was for a few moments lost in prayer. It seemed to do him a deal of good, as he was more cheerful after his invocation,—for that day, at least; and we could never start upon any subsequent excursion without first visiting this wooden Indian, which he evidently mistook for a god.

He began presently to bring tributes, in the shape of small cobble-stones, which he surreptitiously deposited at the feet of his new-found deity, and passed on, rejoicing. His small altar grew from day to day, and his spirits were lighter as he beheld it unmolested, thanks to the indifference of the tobacconist and the street contractors.

His greatest trials were within the confines of the bath-tub. He who had been born to the Pacific, and reared among its foam and breakers, now doomed to a seven-by-three zinc box and ten inches of water! He would splash about like a trout in a saucer, bemoaning his fate. Pilgrimages to the beach were his greatest delight; divings into the sea, so far from town that no one could possibly be shocked, even with the assistance of an opera-glass. He used to implore adaily repetition of these cautious and inoffensive recreations, though, once in the chilly current, he soon came out of it, shivering and miserable. Where were his warm sea-waves, and the shining beach, with the cocoa-palms quivering in the intense fires of the tropical day? How he missed them and mourned for them, crooning a little chant in their praises, much to the disparagement of our dry hills, cold water, and careful people!

In one of our singular walks, when he had been unusually silent, and I had sought in vain to lift away the gloom that darkened his soul, I was startled by a quick cry of joy from the lips of the young exile,—a cry that was soon turned into a sharp, prolonged, and pitiful wail of sorrow and despair. We had unconsciously approached an art-gallery, the deep windows of which were beautified with a few choice landscapes in oil. Kána-aná's restless and searching eye, doubtless attracted by the brilliant coloring of one of the pictures, seemed in a moment to comprehend and assume the rich and fervent spirit with which the artist had so successfully imbued his canvas.

It was the subject which had at first delighted Kána-aná,—the splendid charm of its manipulation which so affected him, holding him there wailing in the bitterness of a natural and incontrollable sorrow. The painting was illuminated with the mellowness of a tropical sunset. A transparent light seemed to transfigure the sea andsky. The artist had wrought a miracle in his inspiration. It was a warm, hazy, silent sunset forever. The outline of a high, projecting cliff was barely visible in the flood of misty glory that spread over the face of it,—a cliff whose delicate tints of green and crimson pictured in the mind a pyramid of leaves and flowers. A valley opened its shadowy depths through the sparkling atmosphere, and in the centre of this veiled chasm the pale threads of two waterfalls seemed to appear and disappear, so exquisitely was the distance imitated. Gilded breakers reeled upon a palm-fringed shore; and the whole was hallowed by the perpetual peace of an unbroken solitude.

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