_24th._--To my regret I did not feel well enough to go on shore. A trader, the brother of the man who wished to buy the guitar, told me his wife was coming to see me and introduced his son, a fine, little, brown fellow of about eleven. Mr. Hird informed me that he is quite a travelled youth. He, himself, told me he had been to Sydney, and when I asked, "To San Francisco?" he replied: "No, but I have been to Frisco." This child was on board a schooner when she was nearly destroyed by fire, and also when she was in imminent danger of being shipwrecked. The fire was an incendiary act. One of the sailors had several times been very impudent to the captain of the schooner and was regarded as a dangerous character. He, one day, in a fit of rage, attacked the cook with a knife and nearly murdered him. The captain, who seemed a pitiful fellow, was frightened at the thought of putting the man in irons and bungled to such an extent with the handcuffs that the culprit, himself, obligingly put them on. The supercargo asked that the culprit be confined in the cabin next his, but the captain was alarmed at the idea of having him so near. It was not long before he managed to get loose, set the ship on fire, and jump overboard. A few hours after the fire they were nearly driven on a rock before a heavy squall. When they were so close that they could almost have jumped on the rock, the vessel stopped dead and remained perfectly quiet. The rock had taken the wind out of her sails, and the backwash held them off.
By and by the trader's wife and her friend, a handsome woman with a haughty, high-bred expression, came on board. With a simplicity that was almost cynical, the trader explained that at one time there had been a great many German sailors about the islands, so, as his wife had yellow hair, he just took it for granted that she was a German half-caste. She certainly did look very like a sentimental German governess, with her yellow hair and blinking eyes, but I perceived at once that whatever else she might be, she was certainly an albino. She brought me a basket and a small Tokalau bucket. In return I gave her a gold ring which she replaced with three tortoise-shell rings and a thicker one ingeniously tied in a true-lovers' knot. I gave the friend a wreath and received a hat as an exchange present. These people are desperate flatterers; we call this "The Isle of Flatterers." A native met Mr. Henderson in Louis's hearing. "You _handsome_ man!" he cried, his voice thrilling with emotion as he eagerly studied Mr. Henderson's face. "You _good_ woman!" said Mrs. Trader to me continually, her eyes melting into mine with admiration and affection as she tenderly embraced me. I asked for a lock of her beautiful hair, which, after asking permission of her husband, she gave me; I pinned it in my diary and she wrote under it, "_Fani mai feleni_" (Fanny, my friend) and her own name, "Amalaisa"; then she fanned me, and caressed me, and flattered me, and finally, getting hold of my photograph, pressed it to her bosom and face, saying: "All same you." I wonder if they really do "rub noses" anywhere! All I have seen is a pressing together of the two faces with a slight inspiration through the nostrils. While I was sitting with Amalaisa and her friend, holding a hand of each, I became aware that a very ragged but superior-looking young native man had joined our party. "That boy, King," whispered Amalaisa, so I shook hands with his majesty and called Louis to be introduced. The last words of royalty were "You _good_ woman," delivered in most seductive tones.