AN ATTACK FROM THE PULPIT.

245

was from an old Fijian friend of mine, who wrote to tell me that in two pulpits at least I had been the text for the sermon of the previous day. One preacher, after describing the distrust with which my arrival had inspired him, said, "We hear a great deal about stealing and embezzlement. What? Do foreigners never steal? This one who guides our Government has stolen 7000 dollars from the Treasury, and who knows how much more of our money he will take? In the sermon of the other there was a passage not less startling. "When the theft became known the foreigner went to Tukuaho and said, 'Who told the people this?' And Tukuaho said, 'It was Sateki. You know his way: let a matter be ever so secret, Sateki will find it out.' Hearing this the foreigner was silent and cast down."

The police made

I put the matter in Tukuaho's hands. inquiries, and traced the story to its source in the fertile brain of the first preacher. The Cabinet decided that policy demanded a prosecution for slander, but that if the man was convicted I might obtain a pardon for him from the king. This course was taken. The incident was instructive in the light it threw upon the estimation in which Europeans are held in Tonga. No calumny against them is thought too gross to be ridiculous. The responsibility for such a state of things must rest upon those Europeans-missionaries as well as laymen-who have stooped to defame one another to the natives.

The High Commissioner, in H.M.S. Cordelia, now appeared upon the scene. It chanced that the gunboat Goldfinch, bound from Rarotonga to Fiji, had put in on the preceding day in search of coal, knowing nothing of the

Cordelia's visit. Tongans never admit coincidences. I was asked for explanations and gave them, but my questioners shook their heads gravely, and spread it abroad that the gunboat had been sent by the High Commissioner to prepare his way, but that for his own purposes “the expounder" had chosen to shroud the truth in mystery. Since this self-deception was more likely to do good than harm, I made no effort to belittle the importance of Sir John Thurston's visit. The king received him with effusion, and had evidently lost all uneasiness about the ulterior objects of his coming. An amendment to the treaty between Great Britain and Tonga was to be signed, and I found myself in the odd position of representing a foreign Government in negotiations with my chief-being, in fact, at the same time an officer in the English and the Tongan services. The presence of the Cordelia had a curious effect upon my relations with the king and my colleagues. They seemed suddenly to remember that I was not one of them, and the old confidence between us gave place to an almost imperceptible constraint, which, as soon as the ship sailed, disappeared as suddenly as it had come. To Sir John Thurston, who remembered the anxieties that had beset him a year before, the visit must have brought that satisfaction which is the reward of every one who, having chosen one of two opposite courses, finds that it was the wisest as well as the most courageous.

XVI.

LORDS AND COMMONS IN COUNCIL.

THE Ministry were at last in a position to fix the day for the making of history. The Code was drafted, the representatives of the people were all duly elected, the new uniforms had come from a Sydney tailor, and the store on the wharf was piled high with sacks of provisions and cases of strong liquors, upon which the fate of the Ministry mainly depended, since legislators cannot be complaisant on empty stomachs. In this again I was compelled to recognise the master mind of the late Premier. It may be inconvenient to force upon the Ministry the task of catering for the parliamentary table, but so long as one has to reckon with the physiological fact that the road to a man's heart is down his throat, the arrangement gives a Government of epicurean tendencies an immense advantage over the Opposition.

The King's Guards, the band, the College students, and the clerks of the House had all undergone rehearsals: there remained but one important function before the Parliament was ready for the business of the country. Wait

resses had to be selected for the dining-table of the House. Kubu invited me to form one of the committee charged with the delicate duty of selecting a band of twenty from among the competitors. We took our seats at the long table in the hall, and sternly ordered the candidates to be brought before us. A clerk with the instruments of his trade sat beside us, to give an air of formality to the proceedings. "Two things are necessary," I heard it whispered; "they must be comely, and they must be

A beauty show.

intelligent. Who will eat if they

be ugly? and stupid women will break

the plates." Then from the door that led kitchenwards twenty damsels sidled in and sat down on the long form facing us. Some sucked their fingers in bashfulness; a few looked shyly defiant; the majority giggled. None of them looked as if they would break plates, but several fell short, very far short, of the first requirement. One damsel in particular had been so harshly treated by Nature that I whispered my doubts to my

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neighbour. "It is true," he answered, "but we can never reject her for such a reason. She would die of shame. The other girls would cast it in their teeth." So they were all taken and divided into watches under the leadership of matrons of experience,-four to the kitchen, and eight to each of the tables destined to accommodate the Lords and Commons. Those who had never waited at table before were ordered to take lessons in the houses of the missionaries; and Joe, the captain of the Kumeti, was appointed head steward and keeper of the spiritroom, because strong liquors were known to disagree with him.

At last the contingent from the distant Niuas arrived, and we became anxious that the opening of Parliament, already delayed three weeks beyond the appointed time, should take place without further delay. Rumour had been busy on the beach. The king, it was said, would not open Parliament until the High Commissioner had left: the Government were afraid to face the Vavau contingent in their present frame of mind. The former rumour determined us to fix the opening ceremony a day or two before H.M.S. Cordelia left. The king made no difficulties; and the last week of preparation was spent in meetings of the Cabinet and Privy Council, in final rehearsal, and in providing with open-handed liberality for the creature comforts of the Opposition.

There was but one hitch in the arrangements. We had prepared the King's Speech with some care. The only allusion to the political events of the recess was a short sentence, "You all know that I have lately dismissed my Premier, and have appointed a Tongan in his stead." The