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- 10150
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.153Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10084
- text
- meal, the nap, and the bath, we now came forth like a couple of
bridegrooms.
Evening drawing on, lamps were lighted. They were very simple; the half
of a green melon, about one third full of cocoa-nut oil, and a wick of
twisted tappa floating on the surface. As a night lamp, this
contrivance cannot be excelled; a soft dreamy light being shed through
the transparent rind.
As the evening advanced, other members of the household, whom as yet we
had not seen, began to drop in. There was a slender young dandy in a
gay striped shirt, and whole fathoms of bright figured calico tucked
about his waist, and falling to the ground. He wore a new straw hat
also with three distinct ribbons tied about the crown; one black, one
green, and one pink. Shoes or stockings, however, he had none.
There were a couple of delicate, olive-cheeked little girls—twins—with
mild eyes and beautiful hair, who ran about the house, half-naked, like
a couple of gazelles. They had a brother, somewhat younger—a fine dark
boy, with an eye like a woman’s. All these were the children of Po-Po,
begotten in lawful wedlock.
Then there were two or three queer-looking old ladies, who wore shabby
mantles of soiled sheeting, which fitted so badly, and withal had such
a second-hand look that I at once put their wearers down as domestic
paupers—poor relations, supported by the bounty of My Lady Arfretee.
They were sad, meek old bodies; said little and ate less; and either
kept their eyes on the ground, or lifted them up deferentially. The
semi-civilization of the island must have had something to do with
making them what they were.
I had almost forgotten Monee, the grinning old man who prepared our
meal. His head was a shining, bald globe. He had a round little paunch,
and legs like a cat. He was Po-Po’s factotum—cook, butler, and climber
of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees; and, added to all else, a
mighty favourite with his mistress; with whom he would sit smoking and
gossiping by the hour.
Often you saw the indefatigable Monee working away at a great rate;
then dropping his employment all at once—never mind what—run off to a
little distance, and after rolling himself away in a corner and taking
a nap, jump up again, and fall to with fresh vigour.
From a certain something in the behaviour of Po-Po and his household, I
was led to believe that he was a pillar of the church; though, from
what I had seen in Tahiti, I could hardly reconcile such a supposition
with his frank, cordial, unembarrassed air. But I was not wrong in my
conjecture: Po-Po turned out to be a sort of elder, or deacon; he was
also accounted a man of wealth, and was nearly related to a high chief.
Before retiring, the entire household gathered upon the floor; and in
their midst, he read aloud a chapter from a Tahitian Bible. Then
kneeling with the rest of us, he offered up a prayer. Upon its
conclusion, all separated without speaking. These devotions took place
regularly, every night and morning. Grace too was invariably said, by
this family, both before and after eating.
After becoming familiarized with the almost utter destitution of
anything like practical piety upon these islands, what I observed in
our host’s house astonished me much. But whatever others might have
been, Po-Po was, in truth, a Christian: the only one, Arfretee
excepted, whom I personally knew to be such, among all the natives of
Polynesia.
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