Observing some boys playing at games a short
way along the beach, I resolved to go and watch them; but as I turned
from the natives who were engaged so busily and cheerfully at their
work, I little thought of the terrible event that hung on the completion
of that war-canoe.
Advancing towards the children, who were so numerous that I began to
think this must be the general playground of the village, I sat down on
a grassy bank under the shade of a plantain tree to watch them. And a
happier or more noisy crew I have never seen. There were at least two
hundred of them, both boys and girls, all of whom were clad in no other
garments than their own glossy little black skins, except the maro, or
strip of cloth round the loins of the boys, and a very short petticoat
or kilt on the girls. They did not all play at the same game, but
amused themselves in different groups.
One band was busily engaged in a game exactly similar to our blind
man's buff. Another set were walking on stilts, which raised the
children three feet from the ground. They were very expert at this
amusement, and seldom tumbled. In another place I observed a group of
girls standing together, and apparently enjoying themselves very much;
so I went up to see what they were doing, and found that they were
opening their eyelids with their fingers till their eyes appeared of an
enormous size, and then thrusting pieces of straw between the upper and
lower lids, across the eyeball, to keep them in that position! This
seemed to me, I must confess, a very foolish as well as dangerous
amusement.
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