.: 

 THE CANOE-MAKER | 



I 

 " Last scene of all, ... | 



Is second childishness and mere oblivion." 



Shakespeare. 



A TOTTERING old man, frail alike in frame and mind, 

 squats dying in an alien camp. His teeth have almost 

 disappeared, worn to the gums by the mastication of 

 food in which sand has been mingled in immoderate 

 proportion. All his life has been spent on the verge of 

 the sea. He has never known smooth food. Before 

 he left his mother's breast grit was on his lips, for in 

 her sleep she snoodled naked in the sand. Hers was 

 the age of bark rugs or none, and was ever lord of the 

 beach who shared with his lady so rare a comfort ? 



Counterparts of Cassowary's babyhood are extant 

 to this day — milk-bellied, nose-neglected, fumbling- 

 fingered toddlers, who smash with stones almost beyond 

 their strength infant oysters and gulp a mixture of 

 squash and sand. 



As he grew up his food, seared on a fire on the beach, 

 was always more or less gritty. Possibly it would hardly 

 have been relished if the accustomed condiment had 

 been absent. 



For many a long year Cassowary was a sort of king 

 in the locality of his birth, though this rank brought him 

 no isolation. Now he is without rank and grim in his 

 lonesomeness. True to the sentiments of his race, the 



124 



