72 Concer'ning South Sea Islands iv 



indescribable, — and only got into the beautiful 

 harbour of Papieti on the Monday. I cannot tell 

 you all the wonderful things that we've seen since. 

 They had tremendous jollifications immediately 

 after our arrival — the great French National Fete — 

 regattas, races, and what not ; and we heard for the 

 first time of the war: it will be an awful business, if 

 these Frenchmen get into my dear old Deutschland, 

 One of the canoe races was superb. Two huge, 

 long canoes, in each forty or fifty men, twenty or 

 more paddles a-side rising and falling in regular time, 

 digging away for life, and in the bow a captain, 

 dancing, yelling, and stamping, and whirling his 

 paddle round his head like a bedlamite drum-major. 

 When it was all over, they lay under the stern of 

 the French frigate, beating their paddles against 

 the sides of the canoes in time to the music of the 

 band — a glorious row ! But more glorious still was 

 the singing of the " Hymenes," Hymns — forsooth ! 

 would that they sang such hymns in the little 

 bethels ! — by the native choirs in the Governor's 

 garden in the evening. It was a mixture of 

 Usquikiah, sweet waters, and a Tyrolese singing 

 meeting in the Jellah Thai : the perfect time, and 

 the marvellous accuracy with which each individual 

 took up his or her part, put me much in mind of the 

 latter. It was a fairy scene : the hanging lanthorns 

 of paper dotted about among the trees ; the soft 

 white of the graceful, clinging, unstarched dresses ; 

 the beautiful black hair, glossy and clean, of the 



