unpopularity of a late Vice-Resident had begun the movement of
exodus, his native employes resigning court appointments and
retiring each to his own coco-patch in the remoter districts of the
isle. Upon the back of that, the Governor in Papeete issued a
decree: All land in the Paumotus must be defined and registered by
a certain date. Now, the folk of the archipelago are half nomadic;
a man can scarce be said to belong to a particular atoll; he
belongs to several, perhaps holds a stake and counts cousinship in
half a score; and the inhabitants of Rotoava in particular, man,
woman, and child, and from the gendarme to the Mormon prophet and
the schoolmaster, owned--I was going to say land--owned at least
coral blocks and growing coco-palms in some adjacent isle.
Thither--from the gendarme to the babe in arms, the pastor followed
by his flock, the schoolmaster carrying along with him his
scholars, and the scholars with their books and slates--they had
taken ship some two days previous to our arrival, and were all now
engaged disputing boundaries. Fancy overhears the shrillness of
their disputation mingle with the surf and scatter sea-fowl. It
was admirable to observe the completeness of their flight, like
that of hibernating birds; nothing left but empty houses, like old
nests to be reoccupied in spring; and even the harmless necessary
dominie borne with them in their transmigration. Fifty odd set
out, and only seven, I was informed, remained. But when I made a
feast on board the Casco, more than seven, and nearer seven times
seven, appeared to be my guests. Whence they appeared, how they
were summoned, whither they vanished when the feast was eaten, I
have no guess. In view of Low Island tales, and that awful
frequentation which makes men avoid the seaward beaches of an
atoll, some two score of those that ate with us may have returned,
for the occasion, from the kingdom of the dead.