pipes were lit and palaver began. I had to tell
stories of my strange country, of the things called cities, large
villages without a river through them, so big that they held _tini
tini tini tini mano mano mano mano_ people, with single houses in
which more people worked than there were in all the islands. Such a
house might be higher than three or four cocoanut trees stood one on
the other, and no one walked up-stairs, but rode in boxes lifted by
ropes.

"How many men to a rope?" asked Pae.

The old men told me about their battles, much as at a reunion of the
Grand Army of the Republic the veterans fight again the Civil war.
One man, whose tattooing striped his body like the blue bands of a
convict's suit, said that it was the custom on Fatu-hiva for the
leader or chief on each side to challenge the enemy champion.

"Our army stood thirty or forty feet away from the other army," said
he, "and our chief stood still while the other threw his spear. If
it struck our chief, at once the warriors rushed into battle; if it
missed, our chief had the right to go close to the other and thrust
a spear through his heart. The other stood firm and proud. He smiled
with scorn. He looked on the spear when it was raised, and he did
not tremble. But sometimes he was saved by his courage, for our
chief after looking at him with terrible eyes, said, 'O man of heart,
go your way, and never dare again to fight such a great warrior as I!'

"That ended the war. The other chief was ashamed, and led his men
down to their own valley. But if our chief had killed him, then
there was war; at once we struck with the _u'u_ and ran forward with
our spears. These battles gave many names to children, names
remembering the death or wounding of the glorious deeds of the
warriors. To await calmly the spear of the other chief, the head
raised, the eyes never winking, to look at the spear as at a welcome
gift--that was what our chiefs must do. Death was not so terrible,
but to leave one's body in the hands of the foe, to be eaten, to know
that one's skull would be hung in a tree, and one's bones made into
tattoo needles or fish-hooks--! _Toomanu!_

"We are not the men we were. We do not eat the 'Long Pig' any more,
but we have not the courage, the skill, or the strength. When the
spears were thrown, and each man had but one, then the fight was
with the _u'u_, hand to hand and eye to eye. That was a fight of men!
The gun is the weapon of cowards. It is