Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 
271 
gay and merry demeanour left her. She fell into 
a deep melancholy, and confided to two of her 
girl friends that her parents, now that her lover 
was dead, insisted upon her marrying another 
suitor, whom she regarded with indifference, if 
not dislike. One of her confidants, a girl of 
about eighteen, had been for many years 
afflicted with a painful disease in the bones of 
her left foot, and suggested to her friend that 
they should both end their sorrows by suicide. 
The third girl, who was the youngest of all, ear¬ 
nestly sought to dissuade them from such a deed, 
but, finding her pleadings were unavailing, said 
she would not remain alive to lament their loss. 
They seemed to have made their preparations 
for death with the utmost calmness and fortitude, 
and, dressing themselves in their best, they 
leaped over the cliffs, and ended their lives 
together. 1 
In Tahiti and the other Society Islands the 
period of courtship, in Ellis’s time, “ was seldom 
protracted among any class of the people; yet 
all the incident and romantic adventure that 
1 Publisher’s Note. —This incident is related in detail 
in “Pacific Tales,” under the title of “For We were 
Friends Always,” by the same author. 
