Frequently in walking through the groves, I observed bread-fruit and cocoanut trees with a wreath of leaves twined in a peculiar fashion about their trunks. This was the mark of the taboo. The trees themselves, their fruit, and even the shadows they cast upon the ground, were consecrated by its presence. In the same way a pipe which the King had bestowed upon me was rendered sacred in the eyes of the natives, none of whom could I ever prevail upon to smoke from it. The bowl was encircled by a woven band of grass, somewhat resembling those Turks' heads occasionally worked in the handles of our whip-stalks. A similar badge was once braided about my wrist by the royal hand of Mehevi himself, who, as soon as he had concluded the operation, pronounced me "Taboo." This occurred shortly after Toby's disappearance; and were it not that from the first moment I had entered the valley the natives had treated me with uniform kindness, I should have supposed that their conduct afterwards was to be ascribed to the fact that I had received this sacred investiture. --HERMAN MELVILLE. [Footnote: The author, Herman Melville, was born in New York in 1819. In his youth he ran away from home and became a sailor on a whaling vessel. Escaping from the cruel tyranny of the captain, he reached the Marquesas Islands, where he had strange adventures as the captive of a tribe of cannibals in the Typee Valley. He lived here many months, and finally returned home in an Australian ship.] [Footnote: Many writers on the customs of primitive people suppose the taboo to be the earliest form of law. It is commonly imposed by the king or the high priest of the tribe. Does the "taboo" here seem to you to be a matter of law or religion? Have we any "taboos" in our social system? What do we mean when we say of an act or a thing that it is "taboo," or "tabooed"? Does ceremoniousness increase or decrease with civilization?] SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT