“And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine (Goliath), he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, ‘Abner, whose son is this youth?’ And Abner said, ‘As thy soul liveth, O King, I cannot tell.’ And the King said, ‘Inquire thou whose son the stripling is.’ And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, ‘Whose son art thou, young man?’ And David answered, ‘The son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.’ “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” _1 Sam._ ch. xvii. 55. [Sidenote: _Flower Friends_] With regard to the exchange of names, a slightly different custom prevails among the Bengali coolies. Two youths, or two girls, will exchange two flowers (of the same kind) with each other, in token of perpetual alliance. After that, one speaks of the other as “my flower,” but never alludes to the other by _name_ again—only by some roundabout phrase. [Sidenote: _Polynesia Tahiti_] Herman Melville, who voyaged among the Pacific Islands in 1841-1845, gives some interesting and reliable accounts of Polynesian customs of that period. He says:— “The really curious way in which all the Polynesians are in the habit of making bosom friends at the shortest possible notice is deserving of remark. Although, among a people like the Tahitians, vitiated as they are by sophisticating influences, this custom has in most cases degenerated into a mere mercenary relation, it nevertheless had its origin in a fine, and in some instances heroic, sentiment formerly entertained by their fathers. “In the annals of the island (Tahiti) are examples of extravagant friendships, unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythias, in truth, much more wonderful; for notwithstanding the devotion—even of life in some cases—to which they led, they were frequently entertained at first sight for some stranger from another island.” _Omoo_, _Herman Melville_, ch. 39, p. 154. “Though little inclined to jealousy in (ordinary) love-matters, the Tahitian will hear of no rivals in his friendship.” _Ibid_, ch. 40. [Sidenote: _Marquesas Islands_] Melville spent some months on one of the Marquesas Islands, in a valley occupied by a tribe called Typees; one day there turned up a stranger belonging to a hostile tribe who occupied another part of the island:—