ALONE WITH CANNIBALS 
able and impossible things to eat, but they had the 
decency never to let him actually eat a gift of char- 
coal—a not uncommon present—although they allowed 
him to come within an ace of doing so. He was 
tremendously greedy, and when cooking or eating was 
going on he would try to grab all he could. As soon 
as we began to prepare a meal he lost all fear of us, 
and pursued his usual tactics. He would snatch at our 
plates like a dog, seize as much as he could, and long 
before one could say that curiously cumbrous phrase 
‘‘ Jack Robinson,” he would have it all stuffed into 
his mouth. If we told him to go away, he would 
remove himself for about five yards and sit down. In 
a very few minutes he had crawled up again and would 
make another raid upon our dishes. 
We had some most interesting conversations re- 
garding the lunatic with Ow-bow, who told us what 
was to be known of his family history. Ow-bow said 
descriptively that he was ‘bad inside,” and added 
oracularly, ‘‘Olana lakuana,’”’ which means, ‘‘ Head no 
good.” We asked particularly if such a person would 
have been allowed to marry, whereupon Ow-bow gave 
an emphatic negative, saying, ‘‘ Wabeeni daba kadena 
enai makana affi?”’’ which is literally, ‘‘ Woman what 
kind this fellow have?” (‘‘ What sort of woman would 
have this fellow?”) The poor unfortunate was, how- 
ever, extremely harmless. One could do what one 
liked with him, for he was never known to lose his 
temper. 
“* Aug. 13th.—Several carriers came, and we started 
at 10 A.M. and arrived at Foula at 3 pM. It is a 
236 
