The real
name is an old but not a noble one in England.]
"Have the natives the custom of walking through fire?" said my friend
the Beach-comber, in answer to a question of mine. "Not that I know
of. In fact the soles of their feet are so thick-skinned that they
would think nothing of it."
"Then have they any spiritualistic games, like the Burmans and
Maories? I have a lot of yarns about them."
"They are too jolly well frightened of bush spirits to invite them to
tea," said the Beach-comber. "I knew a fellow who got a bit of land
merely by whistling up and down in it at nightfall. {292} They think
spirits whistle. No, I don't fancy they go in for seances. But we
once had some, we white men, in one of the islands. Not the Oui-ouis"
(native name for the French), "real white men. And that led to
Bolter's row with me."
"What about?"
"Oh, about his young woman. I told her the story; it was thoughtless,
and yet I don't know that I was wrong. After all, Bolter could not
have been a comfortable fellow to marry."
In this opinion readers of the Beach-comber's narrative will probably
agree, I fancy.
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