Niue. 
297 
into your ears and settle in your eyes. Brush 
them off and kill them, and for every hundred 
you slay a thousand cheerfully buzz into their 
place. You meet a native. He looks like a 
perambulating figure composed of flies. As he 
passes he gives himself a vigorous brush with 
a branch he carries. You do the same. Two 
black clouds arise and assimilate and then divide 
forces. If the native is a bigger man than you, 
he gets most. 
At last the trader has finished his breakfast 
and makes for the door of his fale koloa (store), 
and a roar of approval comes from the natives, 
and then ensues a wild stampede. First of all, 
though, he looks out through a peep-hole and 
calls out fui tau lago (“ Brush off your flies ”). 
The women set to work and strike out vigorously 
right and left. The men will most likely call 
out to the trader to come and brush them away 
himself (I think I have mentioned before that 
your Savage Islander is not a Chesterfield). 
The door opened, the trader steps into the 
breach. A huge platform scale is wheeled out 
in front of the counter, beside which he takes 
his stand, note-book in hand. If he is a single 
