



Produced by David Widger





SUSANI

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 "Funafala," 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 Funafala, as
Senior, the mate of the _Venus_, and myself watched the last sleep of
Susani.

Funafala is one of the many islands which encircle Funafuti lagoon with
a belt of living green, and to Funafala--"the island of the pandanus
palm"--Senior and I had come with a party of natives from the village on
the ma