66 66 was spread a tevaevae (a cotton neighbouring island of Atiu, quilt ornamented with appliqué where they had made friends. patterns or patchwork), that To the marae, by the chief's household adjunct indispensable orders, were brought the images and dear to the island home, which they and their ancestors gay with colour and spotlessly had worshipped for centuries; clean. The bare walls of the there they were burnt wholesale. room were freshly whitewashed. Must we even burn TarThe other large four-poster and ianui? asked the Mitiaro a big table were the only other people, astonished, for Tarpieces of furniture. On the ianui, or Great-ears, was a latter stood a dish of peeled special god of whom the king oranges and a great basket was priest. Burn them all,” of island shells, offerings of said Romatane; and the people, overnight. In the central room accustomed to obey their chief, where we had had supper, the did so in terror, expecting two girls of the party slept strangulation by the gods in on the mattresses, the rest return for the insult of having of the Influential Followers their images burnt. So, in having been billeted in the one day, as far as one can village. gather, were the superstitions, practices, and beliefs of ages overturned; thereafter was peace, for tribal wars ceased almost immediately, and human sacrifices and other horrors were condemned by the Christian chiefs. Outside the rain fell noisily, as it can fall only in the tropics. The long branches of the palms crashed together as the wind roared round and through them. Sleep I found impossible, but I was too keenly interested to mind lying wide awake even if I had found it possible to do otherwise. It was at this period that I asked myself doubtfully, "Is this really myself sleeping in Chief Tou's house on Mitiaro Island in the South Pacific, or am I dreaming it all?" How peaceful and yet how primitive the island seemed. And yet only a short hundred years ago, fierce fighting was incessant, ghastly rituals were practised, infanticide and cannibalism were rife. Here to this village the warrior chief Romatane brought Williams in 1823 from the Crash! a stronger gust of wind than usual interrupted my meditations, and blew open one of our doors. It opened on to the verandah, where, by the light of a struggling moon, I could see many forms dimly lying on the stone floor. The night was warm, and it was motives of privacy rather than fear of cold that suggested I should take action. I climbed down, fastened the door, and ascended once more to my tevaevae. Crash! went the opposite door. More dim forms on the other verandah. shall stay where I am," I thought firmly. The wind was "I stronger on this side of the house, and swirled into and round the room. Presently the original door burst open once more. I lay watching the fronds of the palms tossing blackly to and fro against the sky. Then on the threshold of one verandah showed the vague form of a large village dog. He paused, with one paw raised, then loped slowly through the room and out at the opposite door. A few minutes later another dog, of a smaller and more bustling type, availed itself of the same short-cut, after which a large cat stole in and lost itself among the shadows. This was too much. I descended once Hissing through my set teeth in the usual manner of melodrama, I expelled the cat, then began to grapple with the door-not an easy task-as both it and I were buffeted by the wind. more. As I struggled a low voice penetrated to my ear above the roar, "I am coming to you." A form uprose and detached itself from the darkness. It was that of the faithful Geoffrey. He fastened the door, not without difficulty, and I retired once more. This time I did sleep, but it seemed only a minute or two till the dawn woke us by flooding the room with light. The wind had entirely dropped, the rain had ceased; peace reigned on the island. past five, as we had to be over the reef and on board the ship by six. The islanders had mostly scattered overnight, and had not known we were to be off so early, so that we had a quiet leave-taking. The trader, a Dutch priest who had turned up from somewhere, and a score or two of natives, headed by Tou, escorted us to the shore. Shy children edged up to us as we walked down, and pushed little gifts into our hands-a plaited basket, a handful of shells, a flower; smiling and nodding, women threw wreaths round our necks. The Chief made his farewells, and accepted with quiet dignity our warm thanks for the hospitality of himself and his people. Once more strong arms seized us and carried us to the reef. We entered the boats; a quick command, wild shouting and chanting as the backwash of a big wave bore us seaward, hard pulling to avoid being thrown back by the next on to the reef-and we were clear. Ten minutes later we were standing on the ship's deck watching tiny figures that waved to us from the lessening shore. We had said good-bye to Mitiaro, and had added yet another charming impression to the store that we had been gathering throughout this delightful cruise-impressions of the kindness and hospitality of a cheerful, friendly, and gener THE COTTON CLAIM. BY CLAUDE BRANSON. THE month of May was drawing to its close, and from all over Western India cotton was being hurried into Bombay. Upon the harbour wall of the Edward Docks the three huge sheds that were specially allotted to the coasting steamers of the Western India Steam Navigation Company were, upon the day that had not long dawned, crammed to their doors with goods awaiting clearance. The wharves that formed the harbour wall itself were piled high with other goods marked for export, and in the narrow cobbled roadway between these temporary ramparts and the bulging sheds a confused medley of native passengers, tikkagharris, bullock carts, handtrucks, and coolies combined to raise such an excruciating din as was surely never heard elsewhere upon this earth. But that was nothing new to the slim, silk-clad, young Englishman who, by eight o'clock that morning, was standing amidst it all, dodging a bullock's horns here, a gharri's wheel there, and, at intervals, the sweep of a loaded netsling passing close above his head. He was conversing, or attempting, in a series of shouts, to converse with a small, very thin, eagle-faced Parsee, whose round black cap was thrust back from a forehead wrinkled with agitation. "It's all right, Rustomji," he was saying, "we shall be able to clear all this stuff in a day or two; but if you go on getting paralysed about it much more, that cap of yours will fall right off into the mud, and you'll be ruined." The little supercargo smiled deprecatingly. For more years than the Sahib in front of him could count he had battled here with the annual tide of traffic, and he loved the noisy confusion with all his small self. But upon every morning of every busy season of each of those years he had pushed back his cap, declared that never in all his life had he witnessed so complete a breakdown in the Company's service, and announced his determination to resign without another moment's delay. It was his way of getting properly into his stride for the day's work. "But, Sahib," he said, "what can do? Netravati coming in three o'clock, 15,000 bales, 2000 bags. Sheds not clearing by afternoon, Sahib. What about Netravati? Fifteen tousand BALES, Sahib !" "Now, Rustomji, how many times have I got to tell you not to get excited? Is not Mr Morrison, Traffic Manager of this blessed line and my revered man, recognising his questioner, chief, arriving by the Netravati from Mormugao to-day, flushed with victory over the railway chiefs at Madras? Is not his keen and efficient understrapper, Mr Ronald Clayton, to wit, now grappling with the situation before your very eyes, Rustomji? And if that were not enough, is not Mr Mackenzie Lowe, the General Manager himself, sitting up in the Head Office there, ready to . . ." At this point the supercargo suddenly became aware that certain work upon the wharf was not being performed with that dispatch to which he was accustomed, and in a moment he was off, a raging vituperative little demon, hustling the delinquent coolies, any one of whom could have broken his neck with one hand, into more lively activity, leaving the Englishman to finish off his sentence to himself. Ready to smile and smile and make a damned fool of himself," said that young man. Which was not what he had intended to say to Rustomji. Half an hour later Ronald Clayton entered the huge stone building near the Dock Gates, which was the combined fortress of the Bombay Customs and Port Trust officials. Reaching the offices of the latter he stopped at a door before which was standing a uniformed chuprassi. Linsent Sahib hai? he and opened the door. As Clayton entered an already harassed-looking official glanced up from his paper-strewn table and frowned forbiddingly at his visitor. "Morning, Linsent," said the latter. "I am convinced that you are absolutely the handsomest man in Bombay." "H'm! Thanks very much. But there is not a shed inside these Docks available for even one of your dirty little tramps, if that's what you have come about. And only last week you called me an ugly-looking blighter, if you remember. How about that?" "Dear old Assistant-Docker," laughed Clayton, "I have not come here to talk about our dirty little tramps, as you are so kind as to call them, but about our absolutely brandnew steamship Netravati, now upon the high seas, bound for Bombay from Mormugao with fifteen thousand bales of fullpressed cotton and two thousand bags of grain in her little inside, six hundred assorted passengers, and my august boss fast asleep in pyjamas upon her poop deck. But seriously, Linsent, I want an inside berth for that boat if you can possibly manage it." "Why for that boat particularly? Your steamers keep coming in every day, and you might say the same thing about any one of them." "I might, but I don't. This is the first special berth we "Hai, Sahib,” replied the have asked for this season at asked. 66 "It is very hard to fit in," he said. You had better see the Dock Superintendent about it." "Well, if I must, I must. But if I see him to-day you know perfectly well that in this matter he will immediately send for you, his right-hand man and the brains of all this magnificent organisation, and ask you whether it can be managed or not." Linsent did know it, but he liked the flattering fact that Clayton knew it too, and he forthwith gave in. Linsent, you poisonous-looking snipe!" And Ronald Clayton vanished from the office, closely followed by several hundred Port Trust and Customs Regulations bound together in one ponderous volume, which was subsequently retrieved and replaced by a suspiciously solemn Chuprassi. At half-past ten that morning, in the spacious Head Offices of the Western India Steam Navigation Company, Mr Mackenzie Lowe, the General Manager, was seated at his table, fat, dapper, and smiling. He was always either smiling or prepared to do so at the slightest provocation. Nobody seemed to know exactly where he had come from when he had been appointed to this post three years ago by the Company's Managing Agents, but since his knowledge of Urdu, Marathi, and Tamil was profound, it was evident that the majority of his forty odd years had been spent in India. He possessed a loud cheery voice, a boyishly exuberant manner, and a permanent expression of immense goodwill towards all the world. played golf with incompetent gusto, and belonged, without unnecessary ostentation, to the Y.M.C.A. An exceedingly pleasant gentleman was Mr Mackenzie Lowe. But the usually cheerful Ronny was always very reserved in his manner when duty summoned him to the General Manager's office. He |