death falls on the village, and not even a pickaninny dares make a
noise. The head is esteemed the most powerful devil-devil on Malaita,
and to the possession of it is ascribed all of Mauki's greatness.



"YAH! YAH! YAH!"

He was a whiskey-guzzling Scotchman, and he downed his whiskey neat,
beginning with his first tot punctually at six in the morning, and
thereafter repeating it at regular intervals throughout the day till
bedtime, which was usually midnight. He slept but five hours out of
the twenty-four, and for the remaining nineteen hours he was quietly
and decently drunk. During the eight weeks I spent with him on Oolong
Atoll, I never saw him draw a sober breath. In fact, his sleep was so
short that he never had time to sober up. It was the most beautiful
and orderly perennial drunk I have ever observed.

McAllister was his name. He was an old man, and very shaky on his
pins. His hand trembled as with a palsy, especially noticeable when he
poured his whiskey, though I never knew him to spill a drop. He had
been twenty-eight years in Melanesia, ranging from German New Guinea
to the German Solomons, and so thoroughly had he become identified
with that portion of the world, that he habitually spoke in that
bastard lingo called "bech-de-mer." Thus, in conversation with me, SUN
HE COME UP meant sunrise; KAI-KAI HE STOP meant that dinner was
served; and BELLY BELONG ME WALK ABOUT meant that he was sick at his
stomach. He was a small man, and a withered one, burned inside and
outside by ardent spirits and ardent sun. He was a cinder, a bit of a
clinker of a man, a little animated clinker, not yet quite cold, that