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Updated: June 27, 2025
Gladstone, or the Duke of Argyll, or some bishop had made a misstatement of this kind, how Mr. Huxley would have crushed him! But it is a mere error of careless reading, such as we all make daily. It is manifest that we cannot prove Jehovah to be a ghost by the parallel of a Tongan god, who, by ritual and by definition, was not a ghost.
I had just rounded off my last sentence when he pointed to a house, half- native, half-European, in front of which was a staff bearing the British flag. With the generosity which marks the Englishman away from home I felt in my pockets and found a sixpence. I handed it to my companion; and with a "Talofa" the only Tongan I knew I passed into the garden of the consulate.
The mate, however, who had been smitten by the beauty of a Tongan girl who had expressed her unqualified approval of his fighting capabilities in a very unconventional manner, had the utmost confidence in the good will of the natives, and took it upon himself to disobey his captain's commands; consequently two boats were sent off just as daylight was breaking, and whilst the skipper lay asleep in his cabin.
The traveller who makes a hurried trip in an excursion steamer through the Cook, Society, Samoan, or Tongan Islands has but little opportunity of seeing anything of the social life of the natives, or getting either fishing or shooting; for it is but rarely that the vessel remains for more than forty-eight hours at any of the ports visited.
Napoleon was one of our native crew a short, nuggety little Tongan, who, in an attack made on our boats nearly a year before, had received a bullet in the calf of the leg.
Perhaps he guessed what was going on in me, for he said in a low, cultured voice: "The wheels will stop too long some time, and there will be no rebound;" referring to the irregular action of his heart. "Perhaps that is true," I said; "yet it depends a good deal upon yourself when it will be. Men can die if they wish without committing suicide. Look at the Maori, the Tongan, the Malay.
This chief, whose name is not given in the Sydney Gazette of 1804, but who may have been the same "Ducara" of the Portland massacre, or one of Ducara's matabulis, at last took his leave with the usual protestations of regard so natural to even the present Christianised Tongan native of this year of grace 1900, when he means mischief, even in the minor matter of cheating or defrauding his white creditor.
Tuna and Fata, two sons of Malietoa Savea, or Malietoa I., went with tribute, but before returning tore up the le'ale'a, or iron-wood mooring-stick to which the Tongan king's canoe was fastened, and took it away, which was alike an insult and a declaration of war.
A notable instance of the power of Vave is given in an account of the battle with the Tongan invaders. Many were killed in single combat by a hero called One. Vave was once more implored to help, and that very day One was killed at a single blow by a chief called Tuato, and hence the proverb which obtains to the present day: "Ua 'ai tasi Tuato, or Tuato bites but once."
And then it went shut, and I heard him blow out the lamp. The next step was to take my old girl into the secret, she being a Tongan, as I've already said, and as true as steel.
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