Take him for all in all, I have never known a more engaging creature than this parson of Butaritari:  his mirth, his kindness, his noble, friendly feelings, brimmed from the man in speech and gesture.  He loved to exaggerate, to act and overact the momentary part, to exercise his lungs and muscles, and to speak and laugh with his whole body.  He had the morning cheerfulness of birds and healthy children; and his humour was infectious.  We were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch—­shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of Merry-Andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant-school.  It might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon:  and the ebullition cheered me for the day.

Yet I always suspected Maka of a secret melancholy—­these jubilant extremes could scarce be constantly maintained.  He was besides long, and lean, and lined, and corded, and a trifle grizzled; and his Sabbath countenance was even saturnine.  On that day we made a procession to the church, or (as I must always call it) the cathedral:  Maka (a blot on the hot landscape) in tall hat, black frock-coat, black trousers; under his arm the hymn-book and the Bible; in his face, a reverent gravity:- beside him Mary his wife, a quiet, wise, and handsome elderly lady, seriously attired:- myself following with singular and moving thoughts.  Long before, to the sound of bells and streams and birds, through a green Lothian glen, I had accompanied Sunday by Sunday a minister in whose house I lodged; and the likeness, and the difference, and the series of years and deaths, profoundly touched me.  In the great, dusky, palm-tree cathedral the congregation rarely numbered thirty:  the men on one side, the women on the other, myself posted (for a privilege) amongst the women, and the small missionary contingent gathered close around the platform, we were lost in that round vault.  The lessons were read antiphonally, the flock was catechised, a blind youth repeated weekly a long string of psalms, hymns were sung—­I never heard worse singing,—­and the sermon followed.  To say I understood nothing were untrue; there were points that I learned to expect with certainty; the name of Honolulu, that of Kalakaua, the word Cap’n-man-o’-wa’, the word ship, and a description of a storm at sea, infallibly occurred; and I was not seldom rewarded with the name of my own Sovereign in the bargain.  The rest was but sound to the ears, silence for the mind:  a plain expanse of tedium, rendered unbearable by heat, a hard chair, and the sight through the wide doors of the more happy heathen on the green.  Sleep breathed on my joints and eyelids, sleep hummed in my ears; it reigned in the dim cathedral.  The congregation stirred and stretched; they moaned, they groaned aloud; they yawned upon a singing note, as