316 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



For reasons best known to themselves, the Line islanders 

 have acquired a very decided reluctance to having anything to 

 do with the Messrs. Godeffroy, whereas they willingly go to 

 Fiji, Tahiti, and Hawaii. 



In the year 1879, the German firm despatched three labour- 

 vessels to the Line Islands, and these three vessels returned 

 respectively with seven, six, and one, labourers. It is to be sup- 

 posed that Messrs. Godeffroy will not court any more Line 

 Island rebuffs. Prior to their recent failure, the great Hamburg 

 house employed on their plantations 1000 Line islanders and 

 200 people from the New Hebrides. 



The largest of the Kingsmill Group is the Island of Apemama, 

 the population of which may be set down at about 5000. This 

 is ruled over by a king called Tern Baiteke, who has also sway 

 over Kuria and Aranuka, these two islands having a total 

 population of 2500. His power is absolute ; he even allows no 

 man of his own people to look him in the face. His guards 

 are armed with muskets, cartouche-boxes and swords. His 

 dwelling consists of a very large house and several smaller ones, 

 with stores for cocoa-nut oil and other produce. He has 

 European furniture, and articles of utility and luxury of various 

 kinds, and his quarters are surrounded by a stone wall with 

 twelve pieces of cannon of various calibre. He boasts of a 

 schooner of 60 tons, which is armed with four guns, and has 

 also good whale-boats, besides war-canoes. He dresses in 

 European fashion, usually in black trousers, linen shirt and a 

 black alpaca coat, and he is blessed with numerous wives. 



Tern Baiteke is a Polynesian king of the blood and iron 

 order. He is no mild-spoken advocate of a Permissive Bill : 

 if his people get very drunk, he never fines them forty 

 shillings, but immediately puts them to death ; and near his 

 house is a very interesting collection of human heads set on 



