at I was in
trouble, I made signs for pardon, the safest thing to do, though I did
not know what offense I had committed. My interpreter coming up,
however, put me right, but not until a long palaver had ensued. The
deputy's hail, liberally translated, was: "Ahoy, there, on the frantic
steed! Know you not that it is against the law to ride thus through
the village of our fathers?" I made what apologies I could, and
offered to dismount and, like my servant, lead my nag by the bridle.
This, the interpreter told me, would also be a grievous wrong, and so
I again begged for pardon. I was summoned to appear before a chief;
but my interpreter, being a wit as well as a bit of a rogue, explained
that I was myself something of a chief, and should not be detained,
being on a most important mission. In my own behalf I could only say
that I was a stranger, but, pleading all this, I knew I still deserved
to be roasted, at which the chief showed a fine row of teeth and
seemed pleased, but allowed me to pass on.

[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course from the Strait of Magellan to
Torres Strait.]

[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course from Australia to South Africa.]

The chief of the Tongas and his family at Caini, returning my visit,
brought presents of tapa-cloth and fruits. Taloa, the princess,
brought a bottle of cocoanut-oil for my hair, which another man might
have regarded as coming late.

It was impossible to entertain on the _Spray_ after the royal manner
in which I had been received by the chief. His fare had included all
that the land could afford, fruits, fowl, fishes, and flesh, a hog
having been roasted whole. I set before them boiled salt pork and salt
beef, with which I was well supplied, and in the evening took them all
to a new amusement in the town, a rocking-horse merry-go-round, which
they called a "kee-kee," meaning theater; and in a spirit of justice
they pulled off the horses' tails, for the proprietors of the show,
two hard-fisted countrymen of mine, I grieve to say, unceremoniously
hustled them off for a new set, almost at the first spin. I was not a
little proud of my Tonga friends; the chief, finest of them all,
carried a portentous club. As for the theater, through the greed of
the proprietors it was becoming unpopular, and the representatives of
the three great powers, in want of laws which they could enforce,
adopted a vigorous foreign policy, taxing it twenty-five per cent, on
the gate-money. This was