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Susâni, by Louis Becke
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Title: Susâni 1901
Author: Louis Becke
Release Date: April 19, 2008 [EBook #25109]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SUSÂNI
From "The Tapu Of Banderah and Other Stories"
By Louis Becke
C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.
1901
A few weeks ago I was reading a charmingly written book by a lady (the wife of a distinguished savant) who had spent three months on Funafuti, one of the lagoon islands of the Ellice Group. Now the place and the brown people of whom she wrote were once very familiar to me, and her warm and generous sympathy for a dying race stirred me greatly, and when I came across the name "Funâfala," old, forgotten memories awoke once more, and I heard the sough of the trade wind through the palms and the lapping of the lagoon waters upon the lonely beaches of Funâfala, as Senior, the mate of the Venus, and myself watched the last sleep of Susâni.
Funâfala is one of the many islands which encircle Funafuti lagoon with a belt of living green, and to Funâfala--"the island of the pandanus palm"--Senior and I had come with a party of natives from the village on the main island to spend a week's idleness. Fifty years ago, lo