Joyce was delighted with all that he saw and kept saying that his health was improving rapidly, and to tell the truth he got badly smitten with love over a Rarotongan girl, and under very suspicious circumstances disappeared for twenty-four hours. Next day he took me inland and up in the hills he visited the natives in their primeval homes. There were a lot of missionaries about and they all looked happy and prosperous. Joyce was deeply interested in the mythologies and genealogies of the Island races, and would go inland for miles so as to investigate native manners and characteristics. I remember well how he would see a fine specimen of the Polynesian fair sex walk out from her forest home, and rush up to her, take his rule from his waistcoat pocket, start to measure her from head to foot, open her mouth wide and examine her teeth, all the time taking notes down in his pocket-book, while the astounded native stood like a machine, obedient as a statue, knowing that a good tip would end the examination. “Of decided Maori origin,” he would mutter to himself as he lifted the limbs up and examined the soles of the patient’s feet.
I must say I enjoyed Joyce’s society, for he was immensely amusing and so serious in all that he did. Sometimes he would run across a native with a face that suggested the palæolithic period, or a terrible Mongolian-nigger mixture, and then out came his camera and he would snapshot them with delight. He would measure their limbs and turning to me point at the hideous nose, or extraordinary pot-belly, and say, “My boy, this is a fine specimen of the neolithic age.” Then he would start to give me a lecture as to the reasons of certain abnormal conditions, while the grinning native showed his big teeth and did the right about turn and stooped to show to Joyce the different parts of his anatomy.
The next day Joyce made me tramp right up to the forest that lay at the ridge of the inland mountains and that night we slept in a native bungalow with two old Rarotongan men who had promised to take Joyce into the hills and show him an Island South Sea god. It was a beautiful moonlight night. Joyce lay on the bed of leaves beside me asleep, his beard tied in a knot over his head so as to keep it well trained, and as I lay sleepless, watching and thinking, a shadow fell across the tiny room. “Look out, Mr Joyce,” I shouted and not a moment too soon either, for there stood one of the Rarotongan old men with a war-club upraised. I sprang to my feet and gave him a tremendous shove. He was a strong fellow, and as I fell he got hold of me with a firm grip, but I was desperate and strong too, and I made a great effort and got him under me, and then he fixed his teeth in a fleshy part of my shoulder as I gripped him by the throat with all my might. In the meantime Joyce had rubbed his eyes and was hastily searching around for something to strike the native with and then down came his camera, crash on the old man’s head! His teeth at once relaxed their grip from my flesh and up he jumped and ran off out into the moonlit night, running fast with Joyce’s camera in his hand, for that no doubt was what he was after.