From days immemorial the tawny Gil-bertese have chanted their folk sagas. Last week New York Timesman Robert Trumbull recorded one that "chanters yet unborn will sing"the story of the U.S. 165th Infantry and the bathing girls of Makin Atoll:
To a U.S. colonel came Makin's fat, benevolent King Nakaiea, bearing a complaint. An interpreter translated.
Did the Colonel know that Makin's young women bathed, naked, in a certain lake? Yes, said the Colonel, he knew. Did the Colonel know that U.S. soldiers gathered around the lake and embarrassed the girls by comment and...
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