ore green wreaths, and it put
me in thoughts of the 1st of May at home. This crowd opened and buzzed
about the pair of us as we went in, with a sudden angry animation. Five
chiefs were there; four mighty stately men, the fifth old and puckered.
They sat on mats in their white kilts and jackets; they had fans in
their hands, like fine ladies; and two of the younger ones wore Catholic
medals, which gave me matter of reflection. Our place was set, and the
mats laid for us over against these grandees, on the near side of the
house; the midst was empty; the crowd, close at our backs, murmured, and
craned, and jostled to look on, and the shadows of them tossed in front
of us on the clean pebbles of the floor. I was just a hair put out by
the excitement of the commons, but the quiet, civil appearance of the
chiefs reassured me, all the more when their spokesman began and made a
long speech in a low tone of voice, sometimes waving his hand towards
Case, sometimes towards me, and sometimes knocking with his knuckles on
the mat. One thing was clear: there was no sign of anger in the chiefs.

"What's he been saying?" I asked, when he had done.

"O, just that they're glad to see you, and they understand by me you
wish to make some kind of complaint, and you're to fire away, and
they'll do the square thing."

"It took a precious long time to say that," said I.

"O, the rest was sawder and _bonjour_ and that," said Case. "You know
what Kanakas are."

"Well, they don't get much _bonjour_ out of me," said I. "You tell them
who I am. I'm a white man, and a British subject, and no end of a big
chief at home; and I've come here to do them good, and bring them
civilisation; and no sooner have I got my trade sorted out than they go
and taboo me, and no one dare come near my place! Tell them I don't mean
to fly in the face of anything legal; and if what they want's a present,
I'll do what's fair. I don't blame any man looking out for himself, tell
them, for that's human nature; but if they think they're going to come
any of their native ideas over me, they'll find themselves mistaken. And
tell them plain that I demand the reason of this treatment as a white
man and a British subject."

That was my speech. I know how to deal with Kanakas: give them plain
sense and fair dealing, and--I'll do them that much justice--they
knuckle under every time. They haven't any real government or any real
law, that's what you've got to knock into their