their vanities, their small thefts, their tricks, their
delightful _insouciance_ sometimes, all amused him. He found in them a
fine field of study and observation--a source of fun and fund of
humanity--as this bit about the theft of some piglings will sufficiently
prove:

"Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our pig-pens. The
great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy, so she engaged him in
conversation on the subject, and played upon him the following
engaging trick: You advance your two forefingers towards the sitter's
eyes; he closes them, whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the
fore and middle fingers of the left hand, and with your right (which
he supposes engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you let
him open his eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two forefingers. 'What
that?' asked Lafaele. 'My devil,' says Fanny. 'I wake um, my devil.
All right now. He go catch the man that catch my pig.' About an hour
afterwards Lafaele came for further particulars. 'Oh, all right,' my
wife says. 'By-and-by that man be sleep, devil go sleep same place.
By-and-by that man plenty sick. I no care. What for he take my pig?'
Lafaele cares plenty; I don't think he is the man, though he may be;
but he knows him, and most likely will eat some of that pig to-night.
He will not eat with relish.'"

Yet in spite of this R. L. Stevenson declares that:

"They are a perfectly honest people: nothing of value has ever been
taken from our house, where doors and windows are always wide open;
and upon one occasion when white ants attacked the silver chest, the
whole of my family treasure lay spread upon the floor of the hall for
two days unguarded."

Here is a bit on a work of peace, a reflection on a day's weeding at
Vailima--in its way almost as touching as any:

"I wonder if any one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold,
and have held for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or
a passion; yet all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The
horror of the thing, objective and subjective, is always present to my
mind; the horror of creeping things, a superstitious horror of the
void and the powers about me, the horror of my own devastation and
continual murders. The life of the plants comes through my finger-
tips, their struggles go to my heart like supplications. I feel
myself blood-bo