ny woman
of another valley who goes alone in their district. Grelet's first
companion was caught one night by forty, who for punishment built
the ten kilometres of road between Haniapa and Atuona. Many Daughters,
the beautiful little leper, when thirteen years old was a victim of
seventeen men, some of whom were imprisoned. Daughter of the Pigeon
had had a fearful experience of this kind. It had seared her soul,
and Santos was paying for his sex.

In feud times this custom was a form of retaliation, as the slaying
of men and eating them. It has survived as a sport. Lest horror
should spend itself upon these natives of the islands, I mention
that in every state in our union similar records blacken our history.
War's pages from the first glimmerings to the last foul moment reek
with this deviltry. British and French at Badajoz and Tarragona, in
Spain, left fearful memories. Occident and Orient alike are guilty.
This crime smutches the chronicle of every invasion. It is part of
the degradation of slums in all our cities, a sport of hoodlum gangs
everywhere. In the Marquesas it is a recognized, though forbidden,
game, and has its retaliatory side. Time was when troops of women
have revenged it in strange, savage ways.

This unsubmissive and aggressive attitude of Marquesan women was
brought home to me this very afternoon after the trial, when
Daughter of the Pigeon came galloping up to my cabin. She reined in
her horse like a cowboy who had lassoed a steer and, throwing the
bridle over the branch of an orange-tree, tripped into my living-room,
where I was writing.

Without a word she put her arms around me, and in a moment I was
enacting the part of Joseph when he fled from Potiphar's wife. With
some muscular exertion I got her out of the house at the cost of my
shirt. Puafaufe (Drink of Beer), a chief of Taaoa, appeared at this
moment, while I was still struggling with her upon my _paepae_.

"_Makimaki okioki i te!_ An ungovernable creature!" he commented,
shaking his head, and looking on with interest as she again attacked
me vigorously, to the danger of my remaining shreds of garments.
Chivalry is not a primitive emotion, but it dies hard in the
civilized brain, and I was attempting the impossible. Fending her
off as best I could, I conjured the chief by the red stripe on the
sleeve of his white jacket, his badge of office, to rescue me, for
Madame Bapp was now on her _paepae_, craning her fat neck, and I had
no mi