[Illustration]

[Illustration]


CHAPTER I

THE SONG OF THE MAORI

There is a Tongan proverb which tells us that only fools and children
lie awake during hours that could be devoted to slumber, and it is a
wise proverb when you judge it from a Polynesian standpoint. No special
preparations are required for slumber in the last haunts of Romance, and
as one does not lose caste by dozing in public, the South Sea dweller
sees no reason for remaining awake when he could be peacefully sleeping.
The shade of a palm tree furnishes an ideal resting place, and if a dog
fight occurs in the grass-grown street, he becomes a box-seat spectator
without moving from his couch. Levuka, the second largest town in the
Fijis, was dozing on the afternoon of December 14, 1905, and I decided
to follow the example set by the inhabitants. The thermometer in the
shack at the end of the wharf registered 98 degrees, but the picturesque
little town, with its white and vermilion-tinted houses, looked restful
and cool. The hot, still atmosphere weighed down upon the Pacific,
ironing out the wind ruffles till the ocean resembled a plain of glass,
in which the Union Company's steamer _Navua_, from Auckland, appeared to
be stuck fast, as if the glassy sea had suddenly hardened around her
black hull.

A thin strip of shadow huddled close to a pile of pearl shell at the end
of the wharf, and I doubled myself up and attempted to sleep. But