Niue. 
295 
The two rival trading stations at. Avatele 
almost adjoin each other. Each trader has 
his own particular adherents, and long before 
he is ready to throw open his store these 
have brought their baskets of copra and 
dumped them down against his door. Natur¬ 
ally enough the Avatele natives try to be first 
in the field, and block the people from outside 
villages from getting too near the door for the 
first rush. Perhaps the trader has just opened 
a case of something lovely in the way of prints 
—a green and yellow check upon a brilliant 
scarlet ground—and the Avatele women are 
determined that none of that print shall go to 
hated Hakupu. Each man is accompanied by 
his wife, and each wife is accompanied by as 
many of her female relatives as she can muster; 
also her children. If she has no children there 
are always plenty of volunteers, and every one 
—men, women, and children—mean to handle 
that piece of print, and prevent any outsider 
buying it. By-and-by the whole of the vacant 
ground, stretching from the traders’ stores away 
up to the white-walled native church, is covered 
with hundreds upon hundreds of excited people, 
every one of whom has from two to a dozen 
