Tales fly. One merchant warns you
against his neighbour; the neighbour on the first occasion is found to
return the compliment: each with a good circumstantial story to the
proof. There is so much copra in the islands, and no more; a man's share
of it is his share of bread; and commerce, like politics, is here
narrowed to a focus, shows its ugly side, and becomes as personal as
fisticuffs. Close at their elbows, in all this contention, stands the
native looking on. Like a child, his true analogue, he observes,
apprehends, misapprehends, and is usually silent. As in a child, a
considerable intemperance of speech is accompanied by some power of
secrecy. News he publishes; his thoughts have often to be dug for. He
looks on at the rude career of the dollar-hunt, and wonders. He sees
these men rolling in a luxury beyond the ambition of native kings; he
hears them accused by each other of the meanest trickery; he knows some
of them to be guilty; and what is he to think? He is strongly conscious
of his own position as the common milk-cow; and what is he to do? "Surely
these white men on the beach are not great chiefs?" is a common question,
perhaps asked with some design of flattering the person questioned.
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