ABSTRACT
After leaving the Mants we passed close by the islands of Tapak and Aru, upon the former of which are some ancient platforms and tetragonal enclosures of stonework. Thence we sailed down the east coast, and early in the morning came to the King's island of Tomun, or Tamuan, which lies a little inside the mouth of Metalanim Harbour. Here we found David Lumpoi, an English-speaking chief to whose care N anapei commended us, and sailed home again. That very day a great festival was being holden under Mount Takai-U, the odd-looking sugarloaf hill at the head of the bay. Here King Paul with his nobles and commons around him, sat in state prepared to receive us. Our welcome was coldly ceremonious, and I instantly read distrust and dislike in the faces of the notables present. The king was a corpulent old man with a large broad head, and a massive square chin, his somewhat heavy features being of a Melanesian rather than Polynesian type. Looking into his shifty eyes I could see surly
pride mingled with suspicion and vague uneasiness. The gruff old churl's countenance irresistibly recalled to me the description of the wicked island king in one of R. L. Stevenson's South Sea Ballads :-
The lodge was filled with smoke as a Highland cottage with peat-reek, whilst myriads of lively mosquitoes hovered up and down, in and out, seeking to flesh their suckers in the august assembly shrouded behind that fleecy veil. The interview was soon over. We obtained a sullen and grudging permission to explore the ruins, for which, however, a fee of five dollars was demanded. For one of the Boston missionaries about 188o, foreseeing that on some later day Europeans might come here to explore, put into the head of the Metalanim chiefs to exact this toll, which the Spanish Governor had told us would certainly be enforced. I handed him over five Spanish dollars, which he eyed doubtfully, weighed, smelt and nipped between his teeth, to make sure I had not palmed off lead on him. With the remark, "Moni-n-Sepanich, moni chiuet,"- •• Spanish money, bad money;" he locked it up carefully in a box. Scenting, perhaps, further opportunities for imposition, and assuming an air of cordiality that sat but ill on him, he pressed us to stay. But I was firmly resolved to go before his majesty's dull brain had time to devise some new pretext for extortion. Therefore, as soon as we decently could, we departed, itching sorely from mosquito bites, half-choked, half-blinded, eyes and nO'ltrils tingling sharply from the acrid smoke that filled every corner of the house. A portion of cooked and preserved breadfruit, the latter in odour recalling a Stilton cheese some three years old, followed us down to the boat according to a hospitable native custom. With a stiff breeze behind us we stood across the bay. Just off
Tomun, David, who was steering, managed to run the craft upon a stack of coral rocks, staving in several planks and making an ugly hole in her bows, which we had some trouble in stopping. We put inshore awhile, and after repairing damages, loosed away south for Ponatik, catching our first glimpse of the famous ruins by our way.
