e
bland Sale, with resignation. Never saw a better landing-place in my
life. Here the boat joined us. My mother and Sale continued in the canoe
alone, and Belle and I and Tauilo set off on foot for Malie. Tauilo was
about the size of both of us put together and a piece over; she used us
like a nurse with children. I had started barefoot; Belle had soon to
pull off her gala shoes and stockings; the mud was as deep as to our
knees, and so slippery that (moving, as we did, in Indian file, between
dense scratching tufts of sensitive) Belle and I had to take hands to
support each other, and Tauilo was steadying Belle from the rear. You
can conceive we were got up to kill, Belle in an embroidered white dress
and white hat, I in a suit of Bedford cords hot from the Sydney tailors;
and conceive us, below, ink-black to the knees with adhesive clay, and
above, streaming with heat. I suppose it was better than three miles,
but at last we made the end of Malie. I asked if we could find no water
to wash our feet; and our nursemaid guided us to a pool. We sat down on
the pool side, and our nursemaid washed our feet and legs for us--ladies
first, I suppose out of a sudden respect to the insane European fancies:
such a luxury as you can scarce imagine. I felt a new man after it. But
before we got to the King's house we were sadly muddied once more. It
was 1 P.M. when we arrived, the canoe having beaten us by about five
minutes, so we made fair time over our bog-holes.

But the war dances were over, and we came in time to see only the tail
end (some two hours) of the food presentation. In Mataafa's house three
chairs were set for us covered with fine mats. Of course, a native house
without the blinds down is like a verandah. All the green in front was
surrounded with sheds, some of flapping canvas, some of green palm
boughs, where (in three sides of a huge oblong) the natives sat by
villages in a fine glow of many-hued array. There were folks in tapa,
and folks in patchwork; there was every colour of the rainbow in a spot
or a cluster; there were men with their heads gilded with powdered
sandal-wood, others with heads all purple, stuck full of the petals of a
flower. In the midst there was a growing field of outspread food,
gradually covering acres; the gifts were brought in, now by chanting
deputations, now by carriers in a file; they were brandished aloft and
reclaimed over, with polite sacramental exaggerations, by the official
recei