ought to read this tract, which contains real information; and yet
Mr. Bishop's views would have been changed by an acquaintance with
other groups. Samoa is, for the moment, the main and the most
instructive exception to the rule. The people are the most chaste
and one of the most temperate of island peoples. They have never
been tried and depressed with any grave pestilence. Their clothing
has scarce been tampered with; at the simple and becoming tabard of
the girls, Tartuffe, in many another island, would have cried out;
for the cool, healthy, and modest lava-lava or kilt, Tartuffe has
managed in many another island to substitute stifling and
inconvenient trousers. Lastly, and perhaps chiefly, so far from
their amusements having been curtailed, I think they have been,
upon the whole, extended. The Polynesian falls easily into
despondency: bereavement, disappointment, the fear of novel
visitations, the decay or proscription of ancient pleasures, easily
incline him to be sad; and sadness detaches him from life. The
melancholy of the Hawaiian and the emptiness of his new life are
striking; and the remark is yet more apposite to the Marquesas. In
Samoa, on the other hand, perpetual song and dance, perpetual
games, journeys, and pleasures, make an animated and a smiling
picture of the island life. And the Samoans are to-day the gayest
and the best entertained inhabitants of our planet. The importance
of this can scarcely be exaggerated. In a climate and upon a soil
where a livelihood can be had for the stooping, entertainment is a
prime necessity. It is otherwise with us, where life presents us
with a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and some of
the heat of conflict, in the mere continuing to be. So, in certain
atolls, where there is no great gaiety, but man must bestir himself
with some vigour for his daily bread, public health and the
population are maintained; but in the lotos islands, with the decay