CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION IN WARM QUARTERS
Next, about twenty native women dressed in black rose up and sang some hymns
like ours, but in the Kanaka tongue, and made good music of them. Some of the voices
were very rich and sweet, the harmony was excellent and the time perfect. Every now and
then, while this choir sang (and, in fact, all the evening), old-time natives scattered
through the crowd would suddenly break out into a wild heartbroken wail that would
almost startle one's pulse into stillness. And there was one old fellow near the center who
would get up often, no matter what was going on, and branch forth into a sort of singsong
recitation, which he would eventually change into a stump speech; he seemed to make a
good many hits judging by the cordial applause he got from a coterie of admirers in his
immediate vicinity.
