Chapter 13 Summary

August is an uneasy month. It begins with flooding caused by continuing heavy rain. The river rises and rises, flooding portions of the village and coming to the vicarage steps. Once the rain stops, Mark commences to worry about the ability of the villagers to purchase liquor and the consequences of those purchases: fights and loss of boats through gambling and other woes of the white world that were new to the village. There is also some drunkenness in the village, the first to ever occur. During this time, the village is visited by a party from an expensive yacht. Mark is struck by the foreignness of their world, one to which he used to belong.

Near the end of August, a female English anthropologist interested in studying the village visits the area. She has already formed her ideas on the culture and...