“Women’s rights” were a novelty to England thirty years ago, but in the Cook Islands they were fully recognised, even at that early period. The most powerful of the Arikis was Makea--then a girl, now an elderly woman, but always every inch a queen, and always keeping a firm hand on the sceptre of Raratonga. Any Cook Islands postage-stamp will show Makea as she was some ten years ago. In 1874 Makea and her consort, Ngamaru, were making plans for the marrying of Tinomana, a young Raratongan princess closely related to Makea. Tinomana would shortly become an Ariki, or queen, herself, and her matrimonial affairs were, in consequence, of considerable importance.
What the plans of Raratonga’s rulers for Tinomana may have been matters little. Tinomana was pretty, with splendid long black hair, large soft brown eyes, an excellent profile, and a complexion little darker than a Spaniard’s. She was also self-willed, and could keep a secret as close as wax when she so desired. She had a secret at that time, and it concerned no South Sea Islander, but a certain good-looking young Anglo-American named John Salmon (grandson of a Ramsgate sea-captain, Thomas Dunnett), who had lately landed at Raratonga from the trading schooner _Venus_, and had been enjoying a good deal of the pretty princess’s society, unknown to the gossips of the island. It was a case of love at first sight; for the two had not been more than a few days acquainted when they came privately to James Chalmers, the famous missionary, then resident in Raratonga, and begged for a secret marriage.
James Chalmers refused promptly to have anything to do with the matter, and furthermore told Tinomana that he would never marry her to any white man, no matter who it might be. In his opinion such a marriage would be certain to cause endless trouble with the other Arikis--apart from the fact that Queen Makea was against it. So the lovers went away disconsolate. Raratonga was keeping holiday at the time, because a great war-canoe was to be launched immediately, and a dance and feast were in preparation. But Tinomana and her lover were out of tune with the festivities, and no woman in the island prepared her stephanotis and hibiscus garlands for the feast, or plaited baskets of green palm leaves to carry contributions of baked sucking-pig and pineapples, with as heavy a heart as the little princess.