Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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I could not but watch with interest the lovely forms of these gentle savages of the wild as they capered in the shade of the tropic afternoon. Soon they tired for a while of their innocent sports. The queen sank luxuriously into a crown of fern leaves, and lay like Aphrodite in her shell, with all her dimpled loves around her.

The whole party slept for a time in careless abandonment upon the leaves and grass, their floral treasures thrown around them in picturesque disorder. In the cool of the evening they awoke from refreshing slumbers and regaled themselves on the luscious fruits which hung around. The full moon arose, filling the dell with a soft splendour, and the maidens looked timorously at the shimmering trees, for the woods of Fiji are filled with diminutive fairies and elves, whose delight it is to plague poor mortals, who are no match for the trickeries of these little folks, who people the tangled grass and bushes, spring from hollows of the pine trees, tread softly as the lizards, and will eat the banquet spread for others when the feasters’ backs are turned, laughing merrily the while, and then retire to the branches of the trees, where anyone may hear them chattering together, and singing their little songs with the multitudinous voices of the cicadæ.