man ran toward me, pushing his piece
forward, but never clapping it to his shoulder. Thinking he only meant to
frighten me, I at last dashed the canoe right up to the wall, purposing a leap.
It was the rashest act of my life; for never did cocoa-nut come nearer getting
demolished than mine did then. With the stock of his gun, the old warder fetched
a tremendous blow, which I managed to dodge; and then falling back, succeeded in
paddling out of harm's reach.
    He must have been dumb; for never a word did he utter; but, grinning from
ear to ear, and with his white cotton robe streaming in the moonlight, he looked
more like the spook of the island than anything mortal.
    I tried to effect my object by attacking him in the rear - but he was all
front; running about the place as I paddled, and presenting his confounded
musket wherever I went. At last I was obliged to retreat; and to this day my vow
remains unfulfilled.
    It was a few days after my repulse from before the walls of Motoo-Otoo that
I heard a curious case of casuistry argued between one of the most clever and
intelligent natives I ever saw in Tahiti, a man by the name of Arheetoo, and our
learned Theban of a doctor.
    It was this: whether it was right and lawful for any one, being a native, to
keep the European Sabbath, in preference to the day set apart as such by the
missionaries, and so considered by the islanders in general.
    It must be known that the missionaries of the good ship Duff, who more than
half a century ago established the Tahitian reckoning, came hither by the way of
the Cape of Good Hope; and, by thus sailing to the eastward, lost one precious
day of their lives all round, getting about that much in advance of Greenwich
time. For this reason, vessels coming round Cape Horn - as they most all do
nowadays - find it Sunday in Tahiti, when, according to their own view of the
matter, it ought to be Saturday. But as it won't do to alter the log, the
sailors keep their Sabbath, and the islanders theirs.
    This confusion perplexes the poor natives mightily; and it is to no purpose
that you endeavour to explain so incomprehensible a phenomenon. I once saw a
worthy old missionary essay to shed some light on the subject; and though I
understood but few of the words employed, I could easily get at the meaning of
his illustrations. They were something like the following