Approaching the king with the prescribed gestures, the chief kneels before him, and first offers to his master all the property which has been deposited on the ground. He then takes from the folds of his voluminous dress, which, as the reader may remember, is often several hundred feet in length, the whale’s tooth, and makes an appropriate speech. He compliments the king on the prosperity which is enjoyed by all districts under his sway, acknowledging their entire submission, and hoping that they may be allowed to live in order to build canoes for him. As an earnest of this wish, he presents the king with a new canoe, and, so saying, he gives the king the symbolical whale’s tooth, calling it by the name of the vessel. On receiving the tooth, the king graciously gives them his permission to live, whereupon all present clap their hands and shout, the cry of the receivers being different from that which is employed by the givers. In the following illustration one of these animated scenes is represented. Nearly in the centre is the king seated on the masi carpet, having his back to the spectator in order to show the mode in which the flowing robes of a great man are arranged. In front of him kneels the chief of the tax-paying expedition, who is in the act of offering to the king the symbolical whale’s tooth. One or two similar teeth lie by his side, and form a part of the present. In the distance is the flotilla of canoes, in which the tax-paying party have come; and near the shore is the new war canoe, which forms the chief part of the offering. In the foreground are seen the various articles of property which constitute taxes, such as yams, rolls of cloth and sinnet, baskets, articles of dress, and young women, the last being dressed in the finest of likus, and being decorated, not only with their ordinary ornaments, but with wreaths and garlands of flowers. Behind the offering chief are his followers, also kneeling as a mark of respect for the king; and on the left hand are the spectators of the ceremony, in front of whom sit their chiefs and leading men. Tribute is not only paid in property, but in labor, those who accompany the tax-paying chief being required to give their labor for several weeks. They work in the fields, they thatch houses, they help in canoe building, they go on fishing expeditions, and at the end of the stipulated time they receive a present, and return to their homes. Should the king take it into his head to go and fetch the taxes himself, his visit becomes terribly burdensome to those whom he honors with his presence. He will be accompanied by some twenty or thirty canoes, manned by a thousand men or so, and all those people have to be entertained by the chief whom he visits. It is true that he always makes a present when he concludes his visit, but the present is entirely inadequate to the cost of his entertainment.