the planting of taro and the harvest-home.  Some were historical, and commemorated kings and the illustrious chances of their time, such as a bout of drinking or a war.  One, at least, was a drama of domestic interest, excellently played by the troop from Makin.  It told the story of a man who has lost his wife, at first bewails her loss, then seeks another:  the earlier strains (or acts) are played exclusively by men; but towards the end a woman appears, who has just lost her husband; and I suppose the pair console each other, for the finale seemed of happy omen.  Of some of the songs my informant told me briefly they were ’like about the weemen’; this I could have guessed myself.  Each side (I should have said) was strengthened by one or two women.  They were all soloists, did not very often join in the performance, but stood disengaged at the back part of the stage, and looked (in ridi, necklace, and dressed hair) for all the world like European ballet-dancers.  When the song was anyway broad these ladies came particularly to the front; and it was singular to see that, after each entry, the premiere danseuse pretended to be overcome by shame, as though led on beyond what she had meant, and her male assistants made a feint of driving her away like one who had disgraced herself.  Similar affectations accompany certain truly obscene dances of Samoa, where they are very well in place.  Here it was different.  The words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world, were gross enough to make a carter blush; and the most suggestive feature was this feint of shame.  For such parts the women showed some disposition; they were pert, they were neat, they were acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and some of them were pretty.  But this is not the artist’s field; there is the whole width of heaven between such capering and ogling, and the strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, frenzied faces with which the best of the male dancers held us spellbound through a Gilbert Island ballet.

Almost from the first it was apparent that the people of the city were defeated.  I might have thought them even good, only I had the other troop before my eyes to correct my standard, and remind me continually of ‘the little more, and how much it is.’  Perceiving themselves worsted, the choir of Butaritari grew confused, blundered, and broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals I should not myself have recognised the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer.  To crown all, the Makin company began a dance of truly superlative merit.  I know not what it was about, I was too much absorbed to ask.  In one act a part of the chorus, squealing in some strange falsetto, produced very much the effect of our orchestra; in another, the dancers, leaping like jumping-jacks, with arms extended, passed through and through each other’s ranks with extraordinary speed, neatness, and humour.  A more laughable effect I never saw; in any European theatre it would