ble to see the place and not to fancy it designed for
pageantry. But the elaborate theatre then stood empty; the royal house
deserted, its doors and windows gaping; the whole quarter of the town
immersed in silence. On the opposite bank of the canal, on a roofed
stage, an ancient gentleman slept publicly, sole visible inhabitant;
and beyond on the lagoon a canoe spread a striped lateen, the sole thing
moving.

The canal is formed on the south by a pier or causeway with a parapet.
At the far end the parapet stops, and the quay expands into an oblong
peninsula in the lagoon, the breathing-place and summer parlour of the
king. The midst is occupied by an open house or permanent
marquee--called here a maniapa, or, as the word is now pronounced, a
maniap'--at the lowest estimation forty feet by sixty. The iron roof,
lofty but exceedingly low-browed, so that a woman must stoop to enter,
is supported externally on pillars of coral, within by a frame of wood.
The floor is of broken coral, divided in aisles by the uprights of the
frame; the house far enough from shore to catch the breeze, which enters
freely and disperses the mosquitoes; and under the low eaves the sun is
seen to glitter and the waves to dance on the lagoon.

It was now some while since we had met any but slumberers; and when we
had wandered down the pier and stumbled at last into this bright shed,
we were surprised to find it occupied by a society of wakeful people,
some twenty souls in all, the court and guardsmen of Butaritari. The
court ladies were busy making mats; the guardsmen yawned and sprawled.
Half a dozen rifles lay on a rock and a cutlass was leaned against a
pillar: the armoury of these drowsy musketeers. At the far end, a little
closed house of wood displayed some tinsel curtains, and proved upon
examination to be a privy on the European model. In front of this, upon
some mats, lolled Teburcimoa, the king; behind him, on the panels of the
house, two crossed rifles represented fasces. He wore pyjamas which
sorrowfully misbecame his bulk; his nose was hooked and cruel, his body
overcome with sodden corpulence, his eye timorous and dull; he seemed at
once oppressed with drowsiness and held awake by apprehension: a pepper
rajah muddled with opium, and listening for the march of the Dutch army,
looks perhaps not otherwise. We were to grow better acquainted, and
first and last I had the same impression; he seemed always drowsy, yet
always to hearken an