are honest, well-intentioned ladies, some of them embarrassed by
their weird inheritance. And indeed the trouble caused by this
endowment is so great, and the protection afforded so
infinitesimally small, that I hesitate whether to call it a gift or
a hereditary curse. You may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her
canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but
one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her
sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured
by the lady or her husband. Here is the report of an eye-witness,
Tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made money--certainly no
fool. In 1886 he was present in a house on Makatea, where two lads
began to skylark on the mats, and were (I think) ejected.
Instantly after, their bellies began to swell; pains took hold on
them; all manner of island remedies were exhibited in vain, and
rubbing only magnified their sufferings. The man of the house was
called, explained the nature of the visitation, and prepared the
cure. A cocoa-nut was husked, filled with herbs, and with all the
ceremonies of a launch, and the utterance of spells in the
Paumotuan language, committed to the sea. From that moment the
pains began to grow more easy and the swelling to subside. The
reader may stare. I can assure him, if he moved much among old
residents of the archipelago, he would be driven to admit one thing
of two--either that there is something in the swollen bellies or
nothing in the evidence of man.

I have not met these gifted ladies; but I had an experience of my
own, for I have played, for one night only, the part of the
whistling spirit. It had been blowing wearily all day, but with
the fall of night the wind abated, and the moon, which was then
full, rolled in a clear sky. We went southward down the island on