The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-15
NATIVES OF APEMAMA
The Depressing Effect of a
Paternal Government.
SINGING IN THE SPEAK HOUSE.
How the Brown Girls wallow I'm the
Mud-Youths of Physical Perfection
ALI Afraid of Tembinok'.

APEMAMA, Gilbert Islands, Aug. 20
Especial Correspondence MANY villagers
passed us daily going afield, but they
fetched wide circuit round our taboo.
and seemed TO avert their looks. At times
We went ourselves into the village, a
strange place-Dutch by its canals,
Oriental by the height and steepness of
the roofs which looked at dusk like tenn
ples-but We were rarely called into a
house; no welcome, no friendship was
offered us, and of home life we had but
the one view: the waking of corpse, a
frigid, painful scene; the widow holding
on her lap the cold, blush body of her
husband, and now partaking of the re-
freshments which made the round of the
company, now weeping and kissing the
pale mouth. II fear you feel this affection
deeply" said the Scotch minister "Eh. sir,
and that dol' replied the widow. give
been greetin' a. NIGHT; an moo I'm just
goun to sup this bit fanitch, and then I'll
begin an greet again" In our walks
abroad | have always supposed the island
ers avoided us, perhaps from distaste, per-
haps by order, and those whom we met
we took generally by surprise. The sur
face of the isle is diversified with palm
groves, thickets, and romantic dingles.
four feet deep relics of old taro planta-
tons; and it is thus possible to stumble
unawares on folk resting or hiding from
their work. About pistol shot from our
township there lay pond in the bottom
OF jungle; here the maids of the isle
came to battle, and were several times
alarmed by our intrusion. Not tor them
are the bright, cold rivers of Tahltian
Upolu, not for them the splash and laugh
in the hour of the dusk with village full
of gay companions; but to steal here
solitary, to crouch in place like a cow
wallow, and wash Gf that can be called
washing) in lukewarm mud, brown as
their own skins. Other but still rare en-
counters occupy to my memory. / was
several times arrested by tender sound
in the bush of voices talking, soft as flutes,
and with quiet intonatlons. Hope told a
fiattering tale; 1 put aside the leaves, and
behold in place of the expected dryads, a
pair of all too solid ladies, squatting over a
clay pipe in the ungraceful ridi. The
beauty of the voice and the eye was all
that remained of these vast danes; but
that OF the voice was indeed exquisite. 1t
is strange l should have never heard a
more winning sound of speech, yet the
dialect should be one remarkable for vio-
lent, ugly and outlandish vocables; so
that Tembinok' himself declared it made
him useasy, and professed to find repose
in talking English
The state of this folk, of whom saw SO
little, l can merely guess at. The king
himself explains the situation with some
art. mo; no pay them," he once said.
81 give them tobacco. They work for me
all the same brothers." 1t is true there
was brother once in Arden! But we
prefer the shorter word. They bear every
servile mark, levity like child's. incura-
BILE idleness, injurious content. The in
science of the cook was idiosyncratic; not
so his levity, which he shared with the in