funeral.'

The curious may learn in Dr. Sierich's book the unexpected sequel
of the tale. Here is enough for my purpose. Though the man was
but new dead, the ghost was already putrefied, as though
putrefaction were the mark and of the essence of a spirit. The
vigil on the Paumotuan grave does not extend beyond two weeks, and
they told me this period was thought to coincide with that of the
resolution of the body. The ghost always marked with decay--the
danger seemingly ending with the process of dissolution--here is
tempting matter for the theorist. But it will not do. The lady of
the flowers had been long dead, and her spirit was still supposed
to bear the brand of perishability. The Resident had been more
than a fortnight buried, and his vampire was still supposed to go
the rounds.

Of the lost state of the dead, from the lurid Mangaian legend, in
which infernal deities hocus and destroy the souls of all, to the
various submarine and aerial limbos where the dead feast, float
idle, or resume the occupations of their life on earth, it would be
wearisome to tell. One story I give, for it is singular in itself,
is well-known in Tahiti, and has this of interest, that it is post-
Christian, dating indeed from but a few years back. A princess of
the reigning house died; was transported to the neighbouring isle
of Raiatea; fell there under the empire of a spirit who condemned
her to climb coco-palms all day and bring him the nuts; was found
after some time in this miserable servitude by a second spirit, one
of her own house; and by him, upon her lamentations, reconveyed to
Tahiti, where she found her body still waked, but already swollen
with the approaches of corruption. It is a lively point in the