248 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " CACEALOT." 



one was dressed in European clothing — the women in 

 neat calico gowns ; but the men, nearly all of them, in 

 woollen shirts, pilot-coats, and trousers to match, and 

 sea-boots ! Whew ! it nearly stifled me to look at them. 

 The temperature was about ninety degrees in the shade, 

 with hardly a breath of air stirring, yet those poor 

 people, from some mistaken notion of propriety, were 

 sweating in torrents under that Arctic rig. However 

 they could worship, I do not know ! At last the meeting 

 broke up. The men rushed out, tore off their coats, 

 trousers, and shirts, and flung themselves panting upon 

 the grass, mother-naked, except for a chaplet of cocoa- 

 aut leaves, formed by threading them on a vine-tendril, 

 and hanging round the waist. 



Squatting by the side of my " flem," whom I had 

 recognized, I asked him why ever he outraged all reason 

 by putting on such clothes in this boiling weather. He 

 looked at me pityingly for a moment before he replied, 

 " You go chapella Belitani ? No put bes' close on top ? " 

 " Yes," I said ; " but in hot weather put on thin clothes ; 

 cold weather, put on thick ones." " S'pose no got 

 more ? " he said, meaning, I presumed, more than the 

 one suit. "Well," I said, "more better stop 'way 

 than look like big fool, boil all away, same like duff in 

 pot. You savvy duff ? " He smiled a wide comprehen- 

 sive smile, but looked very solemn again, saying directly, 

 " You no go chapella ; you no mishnally. No mishnally 

 [missionary = godly] ; vely bad. Me no close ; no go 

 chapella; vely bad. Evelly tangata, evelly fafine, got 

 close all same papalang [every man and woman has 

 clothes like a white man] ; go chapella all day Sunday." 

 That this was no figure of speech I proved fully that 

 day, for I declare that the recess between any of the 

 services never lasted more than an hour. Meanwhile 



