Niue. 
285 
aside with scant ceremony, and made room for 
me to get inside the fence and on to the 
verandah of the house. Then a pretty, pale- 
faced, little white lady—the trader’s wife— 
came out and welcomed me warmly to Niue. 
Outside the fence the swarm of gaily-clad 
women and children shrieked and yelled at 
“ Nikolasi Tane ” and “ Nikolasi Fafine ” 
(literally “ Nicholas and his wife ”), not to 
take the new white man and his child inside 
just yet; they wanted to kitia (look at) them a 
little longer. And then they tried to force their 
way in, despite the angry verbal remonstrances 
of “ Nikolasi Fafine,” and the good-natured 
but hearty punches and kicks administered 
them by Soseni, the native teacher’s muscular 
son. At last our hostess carried us off in 
triumph to her comfortable sitting-room (her 
husband was busy landing some trade goods) 
where I met the rest of her family, the younger 
members of which, although in manners and 
appearance exactly like other English chil¬ 
dren, only spoke and were spoken to in the 
native language. This, my hostess explained 
to me, was an inevitable consequence of long 
residence in the islands, and although the 
