Inside there was one room about 18 x 14
feet, which looked as if the people had just arrived and had thrown
down their goods promiscuously. There were mats on the floor not
over clean, and half the room was littered and piled with mats
rolled up, boxes, bamboos, saddles, blankets, lassos, cocoanuts,
kalo roots, bananas, quilts, pans, calabashes, bundles of hard poi
in ti leaves, bones, cats, fowls, clothes. A frightful old woman,
looking like a relic of the old heathen days, with bristling grey
hair cut short, her body tattooed all over, and no clothing but a
ragged blanket huddled round her shoulders; a girl about twelve,
with torrents of shining hair, and a piece of bright green calico
thrown round her, and two very good-looking young women in rose-
coloured chemises, one of them holding a baby, were squatting and
lying on the mats, one over another, like a heap of savages.
When the man found that we were going to stay all night he bestirred
himself, dragged some of the things to one side and put down a
shake-down of pulu (the silky covering of the fronds of one species
of tree-fern), with a sheet over it, and a gay quilt of orange and
red cotton. There was a thin printed muslin curtain to divide off
one half of the room, a usual arrangement in native houses.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174