ly. "I have a few francs, and I
hear they're pretty hospitable in the Markeesies. I came on the deck
of the _Saint Francois_, and I've brung my things ashore."

He undid the towel, and there rolled out another bathing-suit and a
set of boxing gloves. These were his sole possessions, he said.

"I hear they're nutty on prizefighting like in Tahiti, and I'll
teach 'em boxing," he explained.

The Marquesan ladies who speedily assembled could not take their
eyes from him. They asked me a score of questions about him, and
were not surprised that I knew him, or even that I called the negro
by name when he sauntered up. We must all be from the same valley,
or at least from the same island, they thought, for were we not all
Americans?

I kept Broken Bronck to luncheon, and gave him what few household
furnishings I had not promised to Exploding Eggs or to Apporo, who
with the promise of the Golden Bed about to be realized--for I
announced my going--camped upon it, hardly believing that at last
she was to own the coveted marvel. Some keepsakes I gave to
Malicious Gossip, Mouth of God, Many Daughters, Water, Titihuti, and
others, and drank a last shell of _namu_ with these friends.

News of my packing reached far and wide. I had not estimated so
optimistically the esteem in which they held me, these companions of
many months, but they trooped from the farthest hills to say farewell.
Good-byes even to the sons and daughters of cannibals are sorrowful.
I had come to think much of these simple, savage neighbors. Some of
them I shall never forget.

Mauitetai, a middle-aged woman with a kindly face, was long on my
_paepae_. Her name would be in English My Darling Hope, and it
well fitted her mood, for she was all aglow with wonder and joy at
receiving a letter from her son, who three years before had gone
upon a ship and disappeared from her ken. The letter had come upon
the _Saint Francois_, and it brought My Darling Hope into intimate
relations with me, for I uncovered to her that her wandering boy had
become a resident of my own country, and revealed some of the
mysteries of our polity.

The letter was in Marquesan, which I translate into English, seeking
to keep the flavor of the original, though poorly succeeding:

"I write to you, me, Pahorai Calizte, and put on this paper
greetings to you, my mother, Mauitetai, who are in Atuona.

"_Kaoha nui tuu kui_, Mauitetai, mother of me. Great love to you.

"I have foun