a pleasant dinner, and a nap, they came forth like a couple of bridegrooms.

Melville was in Partoowye, as guest of Po-Po, for about five weeks. At that time it was believed that Queen Pomarewho was then in poor health and spirits, and living in retirement in Partoowye-entertained some idea of making a stand against the French. In this event, she would, of course, be glad to enlist all the foreigners she could. Melville and the Long Doctor played with the idea of being used by Pomare as officers, should she take to warlike measures. But in this scheme they won little encouragement. For though Pomare had, previous to her misfortunes, admitted to her levees the humblest sailor who cared to attend upon Majesty, she was, in her eclipse, averse to receiving calls.

Shut off from an immediate prospect of interviewing Pomare, Melville improved his time by studying the native life, and by visiting a whaler in the harbour-the Leviathan-taking the precaution to secure himself a bunk in the forecastle should he fail of a four-poster at Court. His heart warmed to the Leviathan after his first visit of inspection on board. "Like all large, comfortable old whalers, she had a sort of motherly look:-broad in the beam, flush decks, and four chubby boats hanging at her breast." The food, too, was promising. "My sheath-knife never cut into better sea-beef. The bread, too, was hard, and dry, and brittle as glass; and there was plenty of both." The mate had a likeable voice: "hearing it was as good as a look at his face." But Melville still clung to the hope of winning the ear of Pomare. Although there was, Melville says, "a good deal of waggish comrades' nonsense" about his and Long Ghost's expectation of court preferment, "we nevertheless really thought that something to our advantage might turn up in that quarter."

Pomare was then upward of thirty years of age; twice stormily married; and a good sad Christian again,-after lapses into excommunication; she eked out her royal exchequer by going into the laundry business, publicly soliciting, by her agents, the washing of the linen belonging to the officers of ships touching in her harbours. Her English sister, Queen

Victoria, had sent her a very showy but uneasy headdress— a crown. Having no idea of reserving so pretty a bauble for coronation days, which came so seldom, her majesty sported it whenever she appeared in public. To show her familiarity with European customs, she touched it to all foreigners of distinction-whaling captains and the like-whom she happened to meet in her evening walk on the Broom Road.

Melville discovered among Pomare's retinue a Marquesan warrior, Marbonna,-a wild heathen who scorned the vices and follies of the Christian court of Tahiti and the degeneracy of the people among whom fortune had thrown him. Through the instrumentality of Marbonna, who officiated as nurse of Pomare's children, Melville and the Doctor at last found themselves admitted into the palace of Pomare.

"The whole scene was a strange one," Melville says; "but what most excited our surprise was the incongruous assemblage of the most costly objects from all quarters of the globe. Superb writing-desks of rosewood, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl; decanters and goblets of cut glass; embossed volumes of plates; gilded candelabras; sets of globes and mathematical instruments; laced hats and sumptuous garments of all sorts were strewn about among greasy calabashes halffilled with poee, rolls of old tappa and matting, paddles and fish-spears. A folio volume of Hogarth lay open, with a cocoanut shell of some musty preparation capsized among the miscellaneous furniture of the Rake's apartment.'

While Melville and the Doctor were amusing themselves in this museum of curiosities, Pomare entered, unconscious of the presence of intruders.

"She wore a loose gown of blue silk, with two rich shawls, one red, the other yellow, tied about her neck. Her royal majesty was barefooted. She was about the ordinary size, rather matronly; her features not very handsome; her mouth voluptuous; but there was a care-worn expression in her face, probably attributable to her late misfortunes. From her appearance, one would judge her about forty; but she is not so old. As the Queen approached one of the recesses, her attendants hurried up, escorted her in, and smoothed the mats

on which she at last reclined. Two girls soon appeared, carrying their mistress' repast; and then, surrounded by cut glass and porcelain, and jars of sweetmeats and confections, Pomare Vahinee I., the titular Queen of Tahiti, ate fish and poee out of her native calabashes, disdaining either knife or spoon."

The interview between the Queen and her visitors was brief. Long Ghost strode up bravely to introduce himself. The natives surrounding the Queen screamed. Pomare looked up, surprised and offended, and waved the Long Doctor and Melville out of the house. Though Melville was later to view a South American King, was to win the smile of Victoria and meet Lincoln, Pomare was the first and only Polynesian Queen he ever saw.

Disappointed at going to court, feeling that they could no longer trespass on Po-Po's hospitality, "and then, weary somewhat of life in Imeeo, like all sailors ashore, I at last pined for the billows."

The Captain of the Leviathan-a native of Martha's Vineyard was unwilling without persuasion to accept Melville, however. What with Melville's associations with Long Ghost, and the British sailor's frock Arfretee had given him, the Captain suspected Melville of being from Sydney: a suspicion not intended as flattery. Unaccompanied by Long Ghost, Melville finally interviewed the Captain, to find that worthy mellowed at the close of a spirituous dinner. "After looking me in the eye for some time, and by so doing, revealing an obvious unsteadiness in his own visual organs, he begged me to reach forth my arm. I did so; wondering what on earth that useful member had to do with the matter in hand. He placed his fingers on my wrist; and holding them there for a moment, sprang to his feet; and, with much enthusiasm, pronounced me a Yankee, every beat of my pulse." Another bottle was called, which the captain summarily beheaded with the stroke of a knife, commanding Melville to drain it to the bottom. "He then told me that if I would come on board his vessel the following morning, I would find the ship's articles on the cabin transom. . . . So, hurrah for the coast of Japan! Thither the ship was bound."

The Long Doctor, on second thought, decided to eschew the sea for a space. A last afternoon was spent with Po-Po and his family. "About nightfall, we broke away from the generous-hearted household and hurried down to the water. It was a mad, merry night among the sailors. An hour cr two after midnight, everything was noiseless; but when the first streak of dawn showed itself over the mountains, a sharp voice hailed the forecastle, and ordered the ship unmoored. The anchors came up cheerily; the sails were soon set; and with the early breath of the tropical morning, fresh and fragrant from the hillsides, we slowly glided down the bay, and we swept through the opening in the reef."

Melville never saw or heard from Long Ghost after their parting on that morning.

CHAPTER XII

ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR

"Oh, give me the rover's life-the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into the saddle once more. I am sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reek of towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs. Let me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny in thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that swallowed up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with Drake, where he sleeps in the sea." -HERMAN MELVILLE: White-Jacket.

IN 1898, there appeared the Memories of a Rear-Admiral Who Has Served for More Than Half a Century in the Navy of the United States. S. R. Franklin, the author of this volume, had lived a long and useful life, with no design during his years of activity, it would seem, of bowing himself out of the world as a man-of-letters. But in the leisure of elderly retirement, he was persuaded by his friends to get rid of his reminiscences once for all by putting them into a book. RearAdmiral Franklin took an inventory of his rich life, and accepted the challenge. Had he not roamed about the globe since he was sixteen years of age? And he had known a dozen famous Admirals, three Presidents, three Emperors, two Popes, five Christian Kings and a properly corresponding number of Queens, not to mention a whole army of lesser notables. In 1842, as midshipman aboard the United States frigate, Franklin cruised the Pacific. The United States stopped at Honolulu, touched at the Marquesas. Franklin reports that the Bay of Nukuheva "makes one of the most beautiful harbours I have ever seen." But upon the natives he bestowed the contempt of a civilised man: "for the Marquesans were cannibals of the worst kind, and no one who desired to escape roasting ever ventured away from the coast." The United States did not remain long in these waters, "where there was nothing to do but look at a lot of half-naked savages.' So