Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/203

Rh the rocky edge that was exposed, Holden was lifted by the natives and boosted onto the beach above. This, on the lower portion, was covered with coarse gravel, being particles from off the coral reef, and in all degrees of comminution, but mostly particles coarse and sharp, or ragged. In walking up this coral shingle to the finer sands next the palm trees, his feet, which were bare, suffered intensely, being pierced and well nigh burned by the hot gravels. Once upon the smoother sands, and under the trees, he suffered little less. All the women of the island appeared and performed wild antics, cutting all the curlicues known to savages in praise of the exploit of their husbands in capturing specimens of the white race. Under the cocoanut trees, where he went, he was quickly surrounded by a group of boys, to whom he was an object of intense curiosity. They "oh'ed" and "ah'ed" and "ooh'ed," and repeated excitedly "putchi-butchi mari"—white man, white man—and shoved him in every direction and scanned him from all sides, in their eagerness. But this usage was of small torment compared to the pain they inflicted upon his blistered shoulders, each one insisting upon sampling him with the fingers, and one seizing or grabbing him away from another.

At last the miserable day passed, and night came on. The question then arose, what to do with the prisoner. Word was returned from some authority to place him in the Penniaris house—God's house—the house corresponding to our church. This was a mere hatch, with a roof laid on poles resting upon a plate about ten feet above the ground, set on posts. The two sides were open, but the ends, which were bowed somewhat outward so as to form a semicircle, were closed with thatch, and into one of these ends he was placed. The floor was the ground, but this was merely the sharp coral gravel, which