Page:Savage Island.djvu/90

that day from New Zealand, bringing Mr. Head, who had been commended to me as the most suitable person to act as registrar to the Consul in Tonga, in whose province, as it was then intended, the new Protectorate was temporarily to be placed. I was a little bashful in approaching him with the offer, for twenty-three years ago Lord Stanmore, the High Commissioner, had offered him a similar post, and the letter of appointment was still to come. But finding that, despite his seventy years, he was still ready to accept the unpaid office, and that he was a persona grata to Europeans and natives alike, my hesitation vanished. I was particularly anxious to see him for another reason. He had lived more than forty years among the natives, and quite early in life he had married a Niué woman, with whom he still lived: consequently his knowledge of Niué customs was absolute and complete. To my great satisfaction a messenger arrived to announce that he had walked over to Tuapa in the dark, and that he invited me to spend the night with him. What he must have thought of me I dare not think, for blind to the fact that he had just landed from a rough voyage, and had tramped fourteen miles, I plied him with questions till past midnight. To me it