“It’s like this, don’t you know.  Every tribe is divided into Coast natives and Bush natives.  One set lives by the sea, and is comparatively what you might call civilized.  The other set, their cousins, live in the Bush, and are a good deal more savage.  Now, when anything out of the way, especially anything of a fortunate kind, happens in one division of the tribe, the other division pops down on them, loots everything it can lay hands on, maltreats the women, breaks what’s too heavy to carry, and generally plays the very mischief.  The birth of a child is always celebrated in that way.”

“And don’t the others resist?”

“Resist!  No!  It would be the height of rudeness.  Do you resist when people leave cards at your house, ‘with kind inquiries’?  It’s just like that; a way they have of showing a friendly interest.”

“But what can be the origin of such an extraordinary custom?”

“I don’t know.  Guess it has a kind of civilizing effect, as you’ll see.  Resources of civilization get handed on to the Bush tribes, but that can’t be what it was started for.  However, recently the tribes have begun to run cunning, and they hide themselves and all their goods when they have reason to expect a friendly visit.  This was what they had done the day we landed.  But, while we were jawing with the interpreter, we heard a yell to make your hair stand on end.  The Bush tribe came down on the village all in their war paint,—­white clay; an arrangement, as you say, in black and white.  Down they came, rushed into every hut, rushed out again, found nothing, and an awful rage they were in.  They said this kind of behaviour was most ungentlemanly; why, where was decent feeling? where was neighbourliness?  While they were howling, they spotted the hog, and made for him in a minute; here was luncheon, anyhow,—­pork chops.  So they soon had a fire, set a light to one of the houses in fact, and heaped up stones; that’s how they cook.  They cut you up in bits, wrap them in leaves—­”

“En papillotte?”

“Just that, and broil you on the hot stones.  They cook everything that way.”

“Are they cannibals?”

“Oh yes, in war-time.  Or criminals they’ll eat.  I’ve often heard the queer yell a native will give, quite a peculiar cry, when he is carrying a present of cold prisoner of war from one chief to another.  He cries out like that, to show what his errand is, at the border of the village property.”

“Before entering the Mark?” I said, for I had been reading Sir Henry Maine.

“The pah, the beggars about me call it,” said the beach-comber; “perhaps some niggers you’ve been reading about call it the Mark.  I don’t know.  But to be done with this pig.  The fire was ready, and they were just going to cut the poor beast’s throat with a green-stone knife, when the interpreter up and told them ‘hands off.’  ‘That’s a taboo pig,’ says he.  ’A black fellow that died six months ago that pig belonged to.  When he was dying, and leaving his property to his friends, he was very sorry to part with the pig, so he made him taboo; nobody can touch him.  To eat him is death.’