and looking for all the world like a shoal of soldiers'
cocked hats. A man on land carries his tiny craft on his shoulders
with less difficulty, apparently, than the boat carries him on the
water. Rowing one seems about as difficult an operation as balancing
one's self on a straw would, be; but it has an especial point of
merit--it never sink, only purls, and an Australian takes a good
ducking as nonchalantly as he smokes his pipe. The natives usually
paddle in companies of three, and when one of the triad is purled the
other two come to the rescue. One on each side taking a hand of their
unlucky comrade, and reseating him, they move on rapidly as before,
cutting the blue water with their slender paddles and enlivening the
scene by occasional songs. The presence of numerous sharks in these
waters is the chief drawback to the pleasures of boating, and many an
ill-fated oarsman pays the forfeit of life or limb for his temerity in
venturing out too far. The nose of the shark is his most vulnerable
part; and the natives, who eat this sea-monster as willingly as he
eats them, often inflict a fatal wound by slinging a huge stone at his
nose and battering it to a jelly as he rises out of the water. The
flesh is eaten raw by the aborigines in their wild state, but the more
civilized "burn it," as they say, "like white men;" that is, they cut
off huge lumps of the flesh, lay them before a fire to roast, gnaw off
the surface as fast as it burns, and put down the remainder to toast
again until the appetite is glutted.

[Illustration: KING TATAMBO.]

[Illustration: DAUGHTER OF KING TATAMBO.]

These islanders were all cannibals when first discovered by Europeans,
intellectually inferior to other savages, ignorant of agricultural and
mechanical arts, going entirely naked, and living more like brutes
than human beings. Slowly and mutinously have their barbarous customs
been relinquished, even by those brought into occasional contact with
foreigners, while those in the interior are savage as the monsters
that prowl about them in dens and holes of the earth. Even such as
mingle most freely with the colonists can seldom be prevailed on to
practice permanently the arts of civilized life, usually preferring
their original habits and pursuits to the restraints of society. They
readily admit the superiority of foreigners, but cling tenaciously to
their forest homes and rude lives of unfettered freedom. In character
they are cruel and vin