ticed cases beyond number
where natural affection was wanting on both sides;" two-thirds of the
offspring are killed, "such children as are allowed to live are
treated with a foolish fondness"--and fondness is, as we have seen,
not an altruistic but an egoistic feeling. In writing about Fijian
friendships our author says (117):

"The high attainments which constitute friendship are known
to very few.... Full-grown men, it is true, will walk about
together, hand in hand, with boyish kindliness, or meet with
hugs and embraces; but their love, though specious, is
hardly real."

Obviously the keen-eyed missionary here had in mind the distinction
between sentimentality and sentiment. Sentimentality of a most
extraordinary kind is also found in the attitude of sons toward
parents. A Fijian considered it a mark of affection to club an aged
parent (157), and Williams has seen the breast of a ferocious savage
heave and swell with strong emotion on bidding a temporary farewell to
his aged father, whom he afterward strangled (117). Such are the
emotions of barbarians--shallow, fickle, capricious--as different from
our affection as a brook which dries up after every shower is from the
deep and steady current of a river which dispenses its beneficent
waters even in a drought.

FIJIAN LOVE-POEMS

In his article on Fijian poetry, referred to in the chapter on
Coyness, Sir Arthur Gordon informs us that among the "sentimental"
class of poems "there are not a few which are licentious, and many
more which, though not open to that reproach, are coarse and indecent
in their plain-spokenness." Others of the love-songs, he declares,
have "a ring of true feeling very unlike what is usually found in
similar Polynesian compositions, and which may be searched for in vain
in Gill's _Songs of the Pacific_." These songs, he adds, "more nearly
resemble European love-songs than any with which I am acquainted among
other semi-savage races;" and he finds in them "a ring of true passion
as if of love arising not from mere animal instinct but intelligent
association." I for my part cannot find in them even a hint at
supersensual altruistic sentiment. To give the reader a chance to
judge for himself I cite the following:

I

_He_.--I seek my lady in the house when the breeze blows,
I say to her, "Arrange the house, unfold the mats, bring the pillows,
sit down and let us talk together."