nclothed till marriage; the widow no
longer sleeps at night and goes abroad by day with the skull of her dead
husband; and, fire-arms being introduced, the spear and the shark-tooth
sword are sold for curiosities. Ten years ago all these things and
practices were to be seen in use; yet ten years more, and the old
society will have entirely vanished. We came in a happy moment to see
its institutions still erect and (in Apemama) scarce decayed.

Populous and independent--warrens of men, ruled over with some rustic
pomp--such was the first and still the recurring impression of these
tiny lands. As we stood across the lagoon for the town of Butaritari, a
stretch of the low shore was seen to be crowded with the brown roofs of
houses; those of the palace and king's summer parlour (which are of
corrugated iron) glittered near one end conspicuously bright; the royal
colours flew hard by on a tall flagstaff; in front, on an artificial
islet, the gaol played the part of a martello. Even upon this first and
distant view, the place had scarce the air of what it truly was, a
village; rather of that which it was also, a petty metropolis, a city
rustic and yet royal.

The lagoon is shoal. The tide being out, we waded for some quarter of a
mile in tepid shallows, and stepped ashore at last into a flagrant
stagnancy of sun and heat. The lee side of a line island after noon is
indeed a breathless place; on the ocean beach the trade will be still
blowing, boisterous and cool; out in the lagoon it will be blowing also,
speeding the canoes; but the screen of bush completely intercepts it
from the shore, and sleep and silence and companies of mosquitoes brood
upon the towns.

We may thus be said to have taken Butaritari by surprise. A few
inhabitants were still abroad in the north end, at which we landed. As
we advanced, we were soon done with encounter, and seemed to explore a
city of the dead. Only, between the posts of open houses, we could see
the townsfolk stretched in the siesta, sometimes a family together
veiled in a mosquito net, sometimes a single sleeper on a platform like
a corpse on a bier.

The houses were of all dimensions, from those of toys to those of
churches. Some might hold a battalion, some were so minute they could
scarce receive a pair of lovers; only in the playroom, when the toys are
mingled, do we meet such incongruities of scale. Many were open sheds;
some took the form of roofed stages; others were walled and