The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-12
Book Reviews and Notes Of the Publishers.

timbus, which took place sometime any tlme-I cannot tell when-in the course of that bewildering afternoon.
 If l did, I dreamed as follows: That
 Atamat, a notorious cannibal chief and a famous murderer. with a face like an iron devil and limbs like
 trunks of trees, came out by himself,
 and danced a solo dance over about half an acre of ground. The chant had
 ceased, the drums were silent; In ab- solute silence he performed his dance. His bare feet made no sound upon the
 dusty earth; like some evil shadow, he fitted over and over, and across and
 across the dancing ground using very little in the way Of actual steps, but showing wonderful lightness and agili- ty, although his lmmovable counten-
 ance far-seeing eyes never for a mo ment altered or relaxed. At one period
 of the dance, it seemed evident that he was representing a bird of prey; and the representation was certainly excel lent-it was impossible to mtsunder- stand the steady sailing motion, arms slanted or outepread, the short rising futter, and the quick dart or bounce. Ii mistake not this Is a great canni- bal dance, and used at sacrif1cial feasts, for the way in which the dancar's evil eyes glanced over his audience, and the significance of the sudden short rush was very suggestive Atamat is a notorious cannibal himself and there is certainly not man In his village who has not tasted human flesh; for when such dainty is on the menu it is very carefully shared out all round, even the small children getting bone to pick, to make them strong" ("He plenty good ki-kl, one fellow man" confessed an old man on the beach one day, Plenty good, Misst-al same one fellow chiekeni0. There was no fear of a eannibal ending to-day, how ever; for all the women were in sight, and moreover, the Malekulans are nod- est about this one little weakness of theirs. Like Kiplng's hero, They do not advertise," (When white men are 'about) and if they had contemplated a bit of baked man as Q treat, 1t would not have been brought out. Nor is can- nibalism an every day occurrence. If man is shot they do not let his body go to waste, provided they can get hold of it, and revenge often fills the cooking pots, but deliberate killing for the sake of eating is not common.
 Atamat and Tintifnbus danced for about an hour; and then stopped. I do not know why they stopped; there seemed no reason why they should not go on forever It seemed to me then,
 as they had come to an end, that I
 ought to seize the opportunity of inter- viewing such celebrated parsonage as this notorious chief, so I went up to | him, and tried to carry on a conversa- l ton, with the help of mission boy
 who did not know Atamat's language
 at all well, and certainly knew very | little of mine. Atamat is not what the
 suburban lady would call ''nice gen 1 tleman." He does not wear clothes. he | has no manners to speak of, and he has
 a way of looking right through you, 1 as if he saw something unpleasant, lust behind you, but didn't think it, or you
 worth mentioning which is rather dis
 concerting I offered him my hand: he I took it, looked at It and gave 1t back,
 with a countenance devoid of any ex- 1 pression whatever. I gave him some to-
 bacco; he grabbed it without looking
 at me, bit a piece off, and turned his | shoulder on me. wanted very much 1 to ask him "How it feels to be can-
 nibal''--but I was quite sure the boy ! was not equal to that, so I told him
 thought his dancing was very good.
 At this, he burst out into a wild chant celebrating his own virtues and excel- fences, handed yam and a taro to the boy as a return for my tobacco, and walked off, still chanting And that was all the notice he took of my in- significance, then or afterward.p The
 book belongs to Doubleday, Page & Co.'s Geographical Library, which in- cludes such works as Nearing the Pole" by Lieutenant Peary; "The
 Awakening of China" by Dr. W. A. P
 Martin; "The Opening of Thibet, by Pereival Landon, and "The Passing of
 Korea" by Homer B. Hubert.