Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
296 
baskets of copra to sell, and is possessed of a 
set resolve to get it weighed and sold before 
any one else. 
As the sun gets higher, the impatience of the 
waiting, wrangling crowd increases. And still 
more people come in by various paths leading 
from the interior of the island. All these, too, 
have heavy loads of the rank, oily-smelling 
copra, packed in large baskets made of plaited 
coconut leaves. Generally the load is slung to 
a pole, the ends of which rest upon the naked 
shoulders of the bearer. As they stagger down 
the rocky path that leads from Fatiau and 
Hakupu, they are greeted either with cries of 
welcome or jeers from those who have arrived 
before them. With a cry of relief their burden 
is dropped, and then from the baskets and the 
bearers’ backs and shoulders arises a black swarm 
of flies. Flies are one of the two curses of 
Niue. The other is the curse of grass seed. 
The latter only troubles the white people’s 
garmented legs ; the former make no distinc¬ 
tion between white man or native. Leaving the 
darkened and fly-protecting shade of your house 
and going out into the dazzling sunshine you be¬ 
come black with flies in five minutes. They crawl 
