who are brought to Samoa from distant islands to labour for
the Germans. They are not at all like the king and his people, who are
brown and very pretty: for these are black as negroes and as ugly as
sin, poor souls, and in their own land they live all the time at war,
and cook and eat men's flesh. The Germans make them work; and every now
and then some run away into the Bush, as the forest is called, and build
little sheds of leaves, and eat nuts and roots and fruits, and dwell
there by themselves. Sometimes they are bad, and wild, and people
whisper to each other that some of them have gone back to their horrid
old habits, and catch men and women in order to eat them. But it is very
likely not true; and the most of them are poor, half-starved, pitiful
creatures, like frightened dogs. Their life is all very well when the
sun shines, as it does eight or nine months in the year. But it is very
different the rest of the time. The wind rages then most violently. The
great trees thrash about like whips; the air is filled with leaves and
branches flying like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes
the earth. It rains, too, as it never rains at home. You can hear a
shower while it is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in
the forest; and when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and
the cold drenching takes your breath away as though some one had struck
you. In that kind of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the
woods, one man alone by himself. And you must know that if the lean man
feels afraid to be in the forest, the people of the island and the Black
Boys are much more afraid than he; for they believe the woods to be
quite filled with spirits; some like pigs, and some like flying things;
but others (and these are thought the most dangerous) in the shape of
beautiful young women and young men, beautifully dressed in the island
manner with fine kilts and fine necklaces, and crosses of scarlet seeds
and flowers. Woe betide him or her who gets to speak with one of these!
They will be charmed out of their wits, and come home again quite silly,
and go mad and die. So that the poor runaway Black Boy must be always
trembling, and looking about for the coming of the demons.

Sometimes the women-demons go down out of the woods into the villages;
and here is a tale the lean man heard last year: One of the islanders
was sitting in his house, and he had cooked fish. There came along the
road tw