Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/57

Rh “Sure” she says, it‘s jist afther tellin’ ye everything I’d be, a gintleman like ye as thravels for play—sure, jist as the rale gintry does in the ould counthry.” Bridget is neither young nor beautiful, but is a good soul with a very big heart in her, and unalloyed enjoyment in her many followers. She showed me a glass bottle of pearls, some quite good ones, given to her one by one, by her admirers. At all hours of the day I am being offered refreshment, in case I should be tired, or feeling the heat or something. Bridget pauses as she goes by and has a little chat; then I say something impudent and she goes away giggling, and saying the queerest Irish things to me that keep me tittering for long. It really is a delightful quality the Irish have, that of taking life cheerfully and ever being ready with a pointed repartee.

There is such a glare from the sand and the heat is so great that one is forced to the hardship of a chair in the shady verandah where the breeze reaches one. I watch the Kanakas and other natives; there are even negroes in this menagerie, and to see all these at play in the evening is a real entertainment. They are very fond of a skipping-rope, and to see the fat women skipping with babies in their arms is simply killing. I nearly expire with laughter, and they are in the same state themselves, and often roll on the ground shrieking with laughter. Imagine a great fat black woman dressed in one short garment or petticoat, or sometimes a long flowered calico one. She is probably coy at first, and has to be urged on by the others. Every time the rope comes round she makes the most frantic leaps, but yards away from it, till, emboldened by the encouragement of the others, she gradually goes nearer, and at last the rope does go over her, catches her on the back of the ankles or somewhere, and down she comes 3