soon struck; the landlord quickly fitted up a flowery niche in the
drinking-saloon, and then took care that his neighbours should know what
a treasure he had acquired. They came; they admired the angelito; they
drank copiously in its honour. But the parents hearing of the affair,
interfered, carried away their dead child, and summoned the landlord
before the magistrate. The latter gravely heard the pleadings on both
sides, and as no such case was mentioned in the statute-book, arranged it
amicably, to the satisfaction of both parties.

[Scene in Tahiti: page57.jpg]

* * * * *

Wearying of Valparaiso, our restless and adventurous traveller, who was
bent upon accomplishing a voyage round the world, took her passage for
China in the Dutch barque _Lootpurt_, Captain Van Wyk Jurianse.

They sailed from Valparaiso on the 18th of March, and on the 26th of
April came in sight of that gem of the South Seas, Tahiti, the Otaheite
of Captain Cook, and the largest and most beautiful of the Society group.
From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of "the Earl
and the Doctor," who recently published a narrative of their visit, it
has been the theme of admiration for the charms of its scenery. It lifts
its lofty summit out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which descends
to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it. Cool green
valleys penetrate into its mountain-recesses, and their slopes are loaded
with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. The inhabitants,
physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-Eden; they are a
tall, robust, and well-knit race, and would be comely but for their
custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born. They have