d. In another place I observed a group of girls
standing together, and apparently enjoying themselves very much; so I
went up to see what they were doing, and found that they were opening
their eyelids with their fingers till their eyes appeared of an enormous
size, and then thrusting pieces of straw between the upper and lower
lids, across the eyeball, to keep them in that position! This seemed to
me, I must confess, a very foolish as well as dangerous amusement.
Nevertheless, the children seemed to be greatly delighted with the
hideous faces they made. I pondered this subject a good deal, and
thought that if little children knew how silly they seemed to grown-up
people when, they make faces, they would not be so fond of doing it. In
another place were a number of boys engaged in flying kites; and I could
not help wondering that some of the games of those little savages should
be so like to our own, although they had never seen us at play. But the
kites were different from ours in many respects, being of every variety
of shape. They were made of very thin cloth, and the boys raised them
to a wonderful height in the air by means of twine made from the
cocoa-nut husk. Other games there were, some of which showed the
natural depravity of the hearts of these poor savages, and made me wish
fervently that missionaries might be sent out to them. But the
amusement which the greatest number of the children of both sexes seemed
to take chief delight in was swimming and diving in the sea, and the
expertness which they exhibited was truly amazing. They seemed to have
two principal games in the water, one of which was to dive off a sort of
stage which had been erected near a deep part of the sea, and chase each
other in the water. Some of them went down to an extraordinary depth;
others skimmed along the surface, or rolled over and over like
porpoises, or diving under each other, came up unexpectedly and pulled
each other down by a leg or an arm. They never seemed to tire of this
sport, and from the great heat of the water in the South Seas, they
could remain in it nearly all day without feeling chilled. Many of
these children were almost infants, scarce able to walk; yet they
staggered down the beach, flung their round, fat little black bodies
fearlessly into deep water, and struck out to sea with as much
confidence as ducklings.

The other game to which I have referred was swimming in the surf. But
as this is an amus