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My brain reels at the visions your words have conjured up." "Sit down, then, my dear Bateman," laughed Edward. "My machine for cutting the coconuts will always remain unused, and so far as I'm concerned street-cars shall never run in the idle streets of Papeete." Bateman sank heavily into his chair. "I don't understand you," he said. "It came upon me little by little.
I showed them pumpkins and coconut-shells, and made signs to them to bring some aboard, and had presently 3 coconuts out of one of the canoes. I showed them nutmegs, and by their signs I guessed they had some on the island. I also showed them some gold-dust, which they seemed to know, and called out "manneel, manneel," and pointed towards the land.
"If it were something more important, I would tell my friends. But to buy coconuts! Coconuts! Who's interested in coconuts?" And with extraordinary haste she ran to join her friends. A few minutes later Ibarra, seeing that the interest of the party could only languish, took his leave.
They asked if we were English; I answered we were; and presently one of them came aboard and presented me with a small hen, some eggs and coconuts; for which I gave some beads and a small looking-glass, and some glass bottles. They also gave me some sugarcane, which I distributed to such of my men as were scorbutic. They told me there were 3 English ships at Batavia.
The outside and the inside of the crater are too steep. At one place, inside, is a patch of about a thousand coconut palms. And that's all, as I said, saving a few insects. No four-legged thing, even a rat, inhabits the place. And it's funny, most awful funny, with all those coconuts, not even a coconut crab.
This alteration for the better is in a great measure to be attributed to the discontinuance of the Ava, which Tethuroa does not produce: the coconut trees, likewise, which supply them with their only beverage, growing on low sandy keys and having their roots below the level of the sea may probably have qualities different from the coconuts of Otaheite which, with a plenty of fish, that at other times they are not accustomed to, must no doubt contribute to the amendment described.
The road was very difficult, as the high tide forced us to climb between the trees and thick underwood. On the way we met an enterprising family who had left Daet with a cargo of coconuts for Naga, and had been wrecked here; saving only one out of five tinajas of oil, but recovering all the nuts.
I could not help laughing at his impudence: however I gave him a few nails for his coconuts and he left us. Immediately after a double canoe in which were ten men came alongside; among them was a young man who recollected and called me by my name. Several other canoes arrived with hogs, yams, and other provisions, which we purchased. My acquaintance told me that he had lived with our friend Omai.
But these various commercial and industrial developments affect hardly at all the lives of the pagan tribes, So far as they are concerned, the work of the government may be summed up by saying that it has suppressed the chronic warfare which kept them all in a state of armed hostility and uneasy distrust of one another; that it has suppressed head-hunting and crimes of violence, has rendered life and property secure, and has administered justice with a firm hand and a strict regard to the customs and traditional sentiments of the people; that it has wellnigh extinguished slavery; that it has opened the whole country to trade, and, by thus improving the facilities for sale of the jungle produce, has increased the purchasing power of the people, while bringing within the reach of all of them the products of civilised industry that they most value; and that while it has strictly regulated the sale of those products, such as fire-arms and strong liquor, which have proved detrimental to so many other peoples of the lower culture, it has encouraged the people to cultivate a greater variety of vegetable products, especially sago, coconuts, pepper, and rubber, and to improve the methods of cultivation of PADI. Lastly, the government has rendered possible the establishment of a number of excellent mission schools in older stations, where considerable numbers of children of the pagan tribes have been made Christians and trained to fill subordinate posts in the administrative service, or to return to leaven the native villages with a wider knowledge and a better understanding of the principles which underlie the white man's conduct and culture.
As she was old and corpulent it was with difficulty that we helped her up the ship's side. As soon as she was in the ship she sat down on the gangway and, clasping my knees in her arms, expressed her pleasure at seeing me by a flood of tears. Her servants then produced three pieces of cloth which, with a large hog, some breadfruit, plantains, and coconuts, she had brought as a present.
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