This is to certify that Uma, daughter of Fa’avao of Falesa, Island of — , is illegally married to Mr. John Wiltshire for one week, and Mr. John Wiltshire is at liberty to send her to hell when he pleases.

John BLACKAMOAR. 
Chaplain to the hulks.

Extracted from the Register
by William T. Randall,
Master Mariner.

A nice paper to put in a girl’s hand and see her hide away like gold.  A man might easily feel cheap for less.  But it was the practice in these parts, and (as I told myself) not the least the fault of us white men, but of the missionaries.  If they had let the natives be, I had never needed this deception, but taken all the wives I wished, and left them when I pleased, with a clear conscience.

The more ashamed I was, the more hurry I was in to be gone; and our desires thus jumping together, I made the less remark of a change in the traders.  Case had been all eagerness to keep me; now, as though he had attained a purpose, he seemed all eagerness to have me go.  Uma, he said, could show me to my house, and the three bade us farewell indoors.

The night was nearly come; the village smelt of trees and flowers and the sea and bread-fruit-cooking; there came a fine roll of sea from the reef, and from a distance, among the woods and houses, many pretty sounds of men and children.  It did me good to breathe free air; it did me good to be done with the captain and see, instead, the creature at my side.  I felt for all the world as though she were some girl at home in the Old Country, and, forgetting myself for the minute, took her hand to walk with.  Her fingers nestled into mine, I heard her breathe deep and quick, and all at once she caught my hand to her face and pressed it there.  “You good!” she cried, and ran ahead of me, and stopped and looked back and smiled, and ran ahead of me again, thus guiding me through the edge of the bush, and by a quiet way to my own house.

The truth is, Case had done the courting for me in style — told her I was mad to have her, and cared nothing for the consequence; and the poor soul, knowing that which I was still ignorant of, believed it, every word, and had her head nigh turned with vanity and gratitude.  Now, of all this I had no guess; I was one of those most opposed to any nonsense about native women, having seen so many whites eaten up by their wives’ relatives, and made fools of in the bargain; and I told myself I must make a stand at once, and bring her to her bearings.  But she looked so quaint and pretty as she ran away and then awaited me, and the thing was done so like a child or a kind dog, that the best I could do was just to follow her whenever she went on, to listen for the fall of her bare feet, and to watch in the dusk for the shining of her body.  And there was another thought came in my head.  She played kitten with me now when we were alone; but in the house she had carried it the way a countess might, so proud and humble.  And what with her dress — for all there was so little of it, and that native enough — what with her fine tapa and fine scents, and her red flowers and seeds, that were quite as bright as jewels, only larger — it came over me she was a kind of countess really, dressed to hear great singers at a concert, and no even mate for a poor trader like myself.