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THE ROYAL DEAD.

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tomb, or rather the house in which the royal dead of Tahiti are laid, and left for a while, till only bones and dust remain. Then a specially appointed official goes at dead of night and secretly carries the remains to some place-probably a cave in the mountains-where they are safely buried; only a very few trusted old adherents being allowed to know where they are laid. The mausoleum is a hideous little house, standing on a bare grass lawn by the sea. Till recently it was surrounded by a fine of sacred casuarina-trees; but one unlucky day Ariiaue was short of money (cruel report says of brandy!), and he actually sold the venerated trees to some Goth, who cut them for common timber.

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I fancy that the jealous mystery which enshrouds the final burial of royal bones may be traced to lingering traditions of witchcraft, or some kindred superstition connected with the ancient system of taboo, which prevailed throughout Polynesia, and entailed divers diseases, and even death, on those who rashly tampered with things belonging to high chiefs. The other day a man walked past this door carrying a bunch of roses. Mrs Green was going to take one, when a half-caste Tahitian cried out, "Oh, take care! they were gathered in the garden of," naming some one related to the royal family. I then learnt that to take anything be

VOL. II.

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longing to royalty, or to wear a garment that has been worn by any of them, or even to lie on their bed, or rest the head on their pillow, is supposed to produce king's evil. So implicit is this belief among the older generation, that Queen Pomare always made up bundles of her old clothes and sent them to sea to be sunk outside the reef.

The cure for any person supposed to have incurred danger in this manner savours of the celebrated prescription in hydrophobia, "Swallow a hair of the dog that bit you." The old queen was greatly attached to one of Mrs Green's little boys, whom, after the curious fashion of this country, she called her adopted son, giving him a Tahitian name, by which alone he was known to the natives. One day, after the boy had been much with the queen, a suspicious-looking spot broke out on his cheek, and the native attendants begged Mrs Green to go at once to the queen and ask her to take the child into bed with her, and cover him up, which would avert all danger.1

1 Let not the nations of the West sneer at these superstitions of the East. Faith in the efficacy of the king's touch as a cure for scrofula was implicit both in France and England for many a long year. So early as A.D. 481 it was practised by Clovis. And it is recorded that on Easter Day, 1686, Louis XIV. touched 1600 persons, saying to each, "Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse!" This singular divine right was first claimed in England by Edward the Confessor in 1058, and his successors carried it on. Charles I. did, on St John's Day, 1633, visit Holyrood Chapel, where "he heallit 100 persons, young and old,

IMPORTED CENTIPEDES.

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This afternoon, for the first time since I landed, I have seen a centipede-not one, but many, which were lying quietly hidden beneath a mass of decaying fronds of the cocoa-palm. We put one in a bottle; but though a large specimen for the Pacific, it is barely six inches in length. These isles of the blest enjoy a perfect immunity from all venomous creatures, with this one exception; and it is a very innocent creature compared with the centipedes of other lands, especially of Africa and South America. Unfortunately the latter have lately been carried by foreign ships to some of the Leeward Isles, and in the same manner scorpions have been brought to Tahiti―a very unfortunate introduction. The centipedes, small as they are, can give an agonising bite, which, however, is not actually dangerous to

of the cruelles or king's evil." Charles II. actually touched 92,107 such patients—being an average of 12 per diem for twenty years. His exchequer must have suffered by this kingly privilege, as he presented a broad gold piece to each sufferer. The touch of Queen Elizabeth was declared " a sure relief when all other methods have failed." Henry VIII., not content with miraculously curing all scrofula patients, also healed those afflicted with cruel cramps. Dr Johnson speaks of his earliest recollections of Queen Anne, into whose awful presence he had been ushered in his infancy, that by her royal touch she might cure him of his sore disease! The office appointed by the Church to be said on these occasions was actually retained in the English liturgy till 1719, when it was omitted by command of George I. But so late as 1745 many of the Jacobite party came secretly to Charles Edward, to crave his healing touch. See 'From the Hebrides to the Himalayas' (C. F. Gordon Cumming), vol. i. p. 264.

human beings. They are chiefly fatal to poultry, especially turkeys, which swallow them in mistake for worms, and invariably die soon afterwards.

These horrid creatures are highly phosphorescent, and leave a trail of light as they move at night. If crushed, they emit a glow of light, and hence were in olden days reverenced as an incarnation of divinity; and Veri, the centipede-god, was worshipped at Mangai, in the Hervey Isles, where a huge banyan-tree overshadowed his marae, among the grey rocks, and where to this day some say that gigantic centipedes keep guard over the hidden treasures of the tribe of Teipe, formerly their devout worshippers.

Speaking of phosphorescent things, did I ever tell you about the curious luminous fungi which are found in the mountains of Fiji? They gleam with a pale weird blue light, and the natives occasionally play tricks at the expense of their superstitious neighbours, suggestive of the turnip-ghosts of our own foolish young days.

Another new experience of this afternoon has been tasting the far-famed orange-rum, which is supposed to have such a deteriorating effect on those addicted to it. It is weak, insipid stuff, like mawkish vinegar. I should be very sorry to drink a wine-glassful of it, but I should think a bucketful would scarcely have any effect on the head,

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however seriously it might disturb other organs. I am certain it is weaker than the cider of which English haymakers drink twenty large mugs in a day with impunity.

But I am told that long before the introduction of oranges, and the consequent invention of orangerum, the Tahitians had been taught by the Hawaiians how to distil an intoxicating spirit from the root of the ti shrub,1 which is highly saccharine, and is generally baked, and made into puddings.

They invented a still of the rudest construction. For the boiler they hollowed a lump of rock, and this they covered with an unwieldy wooden cover, the rude stump of a tree, into which was inserted a long bamboo, which rested in a trough of cold water, and conveyed the distilled spirit into a gourd. This ponderous boiler was set on two layers of stones, leaving a space for a fire, and was then filled with the baked ti root, which had been soaked till fermentation had commenced. Then ensued wild orgies, when all the people of the district gave themselves up to unbridled licentiousness; and having drunk till they were mad, generally ended by quarrelling, so that it was not an uncommon thing to find the remains of one of these rude stills overturned and scattered on the ground, and around them the corpses of those who had ended their

1 Dracaena terminalis.

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