Cook; the king was much
interested in the story; and turned for more information--not to Mr.
Stephen's Dictionary, not to the "Britannica," but to the Bible in the
Gilbert Island version (which consists chiefly of the New Testament and
the Psalms). Here he sought long and earnestly; Paul he found, and
Festus, and Alexander the coppersmith: no word of Cook. The inference
was obvious: the explorer was a myth. So hard it is, even for a man of
great natural parts like Tembinok', to grasp the ideas of a new society
and culture.

CHAPTER V

KING AND COMMONS

We saw but little of the commons of the isle. At first we met them at
the well, where they washed their linen and we drew water for the table.
The combination was distasteful; and, having a tyrant at command, we
applied to the king and had the place enclosed in our tapu. It was one
of the few favours which Tembinok' visibly boggled about granting, and
it may be conceived how little popular it made the strangers. Many
villagers passed us daily going afield; but they fetched a wide circuit
round our tapu, and seemed to avert their looks. At times we went
ourselves into the village--a strange place. Dutch by its canals,
Oriental by the height and steepness of the roofs, which looked at dusk
like temples; but we were rarely called into a house: no welcome, no
friendship, was offered us; and of home life we had but the one view:
the waking of a corpse, a frigid, painful scene: the widow holding on
her lap the cold, bluish body of her husband, and now partaking of the
refreshments which made the round of the company, now weeping and
kissing the pale mouth. ("I fear you feel this affliction deeply," said
the Scottish minister. "Eh, sir, and that I do!" replied the widow.
"I've been greetin' a' nicht; an' noo I'm just gaun to sup this bit
parritch, and then I'll begin an' greet again.") In our walks abroad I
have always supposed the islanders avoided us, perhaps from distaste,
perhaps by order; and those whom we met we took generally by surprise.
The surface of the isle is diversified with palm groves, thickets, and
romantic dingles four feet deep, relics of old taro plantations, and it
is thus possible to stumble unawares on folk resting or hiding from
their work. About pistol-shot from our township there lay a pond in the
bottom of a jungle; here the maids of the isle came to bathe, and were
several times alarmed by our intrusion. Not for them are the bright cold
ri