ul of the population to the Quay.

I was about to make up my mind to go back to the Lubeck and sulk, when a
native issued from the grove at my left and blandly gazed upon me as he
passed. He wore a flesh-coloured vala about the loins, a red pandanus
flower in his ear, and a lia-lia of hibiscus blossoms about his neck.
That was all. Evidently he was not interested in me, for he walked on. I
choked back my feelings of hurt pride, and asked him in an off-hand kind
of way, and in a sort of pigeon English, if he could tell me where the
British consul lived. The stalwart subject of King George Tabou looked
at me gravely for an instant, then turned and motioned down the road.
I walked on beside him, improperly offended by his dignified airs,
his coolness of body and manner, and what I considered the insolent
plumpness and form of his chest and limbs.

He was a harmony in brown and red. Even his hair was brown. I had to
admit to myself that in point of comeliness I could not stand the same
scrutiny in the same amount of costume. Perhaps that made me a little
imperious, a little superior in manner. Reducing my English to his
comprehension as I measured it--he bowed when I asked him if he
understood--I explained to him many things necessary for the good of his
country. Remembering where I was, I expressed myself in terms that were
gentle though austere regarding the King, and reproved the supineness
and stupidity of the Crown Prince. Lamenting the departed puissance of
the sons of Tongatabu, I warmed to my subject, telling this savage
who looked at me with so neutral a countenance how much I deplored the
decadence of his race. I bade him think of the time when the Tongans,
in token of magnanimous amity, rubbed noses with the white man, and of
where those noses were now--between the fingers of the Caucasian. He
appeared becomingly attentive, and did me the honour before I began my
peroration to change the pandanus flower from the ear next to me to the
other.

I had just rounded off my last sentence when he pointed to a house,
half-native, half-European, in front of which was a staff bearing the
British flag. With the generosity which marks the Englishman away
from home I felt in my pockets and found a sixpence. I handed it to my
companion; and with a "Talofa" the only Tongan I knew--I passed into
the garden of the consulate. The consul himself came to the door when
I knocked on the lintel. After glancing at my card he shook me b