286 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
children were actually educated in English, it 
was impossible to get them to talk in anything 
but Niuean — even to their parents — and 
then, naturally enough, the parents themselves 
answered them in the same tongue. 
In a few weeks or so I was fairly settled down 
to the routine of life in Savage Island, and 
began to take an interest in the people. 
Candidly, they are not nice people—not by 
any means. In appearance the Niueans are a 
strongly-built, muscular race, darker in colour 
than the Samoans, and without many of the 
good qualities that distinguish the latter race. 
In Samoa you cannot walk about anywhere in 
the villages without the natives calling out and 
asking you to come inside out of the heat of 
the sun {Sau i fale ma le la /) and drink a coco¬ 
nut. In Niue you may ride or walk all round 
the island on a blisteringly hot day and meet, 
perhaps, fifty natives of either sex carrying 
bundles of drinking coconuts, but they will 
walk stolidly past, unless you happen to have 
some tobacco to give them. Then you will 
get a drink and, if the piece of tobacco you 
tender is not big enough, the man or woman 
you give it to will not hesitate to tell you that 
