t have continued this gradual course, but that
one day I came upon her in the river entirely nude. Her
gratification was unconcealed; naively she displayed the innumerable
whirls and arabesques of her adornment for my compliments, and
thereafter she wore only a _pareu_ when at home, entirely dropping
alien standards of modesty and her gown.

She said that people came from far valleys to see her legs, and I
could readily believe it. It was so with the leg of the late Queen
Vaekehu, a leg so perfect in mold and so elaborately and
artistically inked that it distinguished her even more than her rank.
Casual whites, especially, considered it a curiosity, and offended
her majesty by laying democratic hands upon the masterpiece. I had
known a man or two who had seen the queen at home, and who testified
warmly to the harmonious blending of flesh color with the candle-nut
soot. Among my effects in the House of the Golden Bed I had a
photograph showing the multiplicity and fine execution of the
designs upon Vaekehu's leg, yet comparing it with the two realities
of Titihuti I could not yield the palm to the queen.

The legs of Titihuti were tattooed from toes to ankles with a
net-like pattern, and from the ankles to the waistline, where the
design terminated in a handsome girdle, there were curves, circles
and filigree, all in accord, all part of a harmonious whole, and
most pleasing to the eye. The pattern upon her feet was much like
that of sandals or high mocassins, indicating a former use of
leg-coverings in a cold climate. Titihuti herself, after an anxious
inch-for-inch matching of picture and living form, said complacently
that her legs were _meitai ae_, which meant that she would not have
hesitated to enter her own decorations in beauty competition with
those of Vaekehu.

Kake, her daughter, had been christened for her mother's greatest
charm, for her name means Tattooed to the Loins, though there was
not a tattoo mark upon her. She was a beautiful, stately girl of
nineteen or twenty, married to a devoted native, to whom, shortly
after my arrival, she presented his own living miniature. I was the
startled witness of the birth of this babe, the delight of his
father's heart.

My neighbors and I had the same bathing hour, soon after daylight,
and usually chose the same pool in the clear river. Kake was lying
on a mat on their _paepae_ when I passed one morning, and when I
said "Kaoha" to her she did not reply. Her sile