The Water Was Up To Their Waists, And Leis Of Ohia Blossoms And Ferns, And Masses Of Unbound Hair Fantastically Wreathed With Moss, Fell Over Their Faultless Forms, And Their Rich Brown Skin Gleamed In The Slant Sunshine.

They were catching shrimps with trumpet-shaped baskets, perhaps rather a prosaic occupation.

They joined us, and we waded down together to the place where they had left their horses. The women slipped into their holukus, and the man insisted on my riding his barebacked horse to the place where we had left our own, and then we all galloped over the soft grass.

Waimanu had turned out to meet us about thirty people on horseback, all of whom shook hands with me, and some of them threw over me garlands of ohia, pandanus, and hibiscus. Where our cavalcade entered the river, a number of children and dogs and three canoes awaited us, and thus escorted I returned triumphantly to the house. The procession on the river of paddling canoes, swimming children, and dogs, and more than thirty riders, with their feet tucked up round their horses' necks, all escorting a "pale face," was grotesque and enchanting, and I revelled in this lapse into savagery, and enjoyed heartily the kindliness and goodwill of this unsophisticated people.

When darkness spread over the valley, clear voices ascended in a weird recitative, the room filled up with people, pipes circulated freely, poi was again produced, and calabashes of cocoa-nut milk. The meles were long, and I crept within my curtain and lay down, but the drowsiness which legitimately came over me after riding thirty miles and wading two, was broken in upon by two monstrous cockroaches really as large as mice, with fierce-looking antennae and prominent eyes, both of which mounted guard on my pillow. On rising to drive them away, I found to my dismay that they were but the leaders of a host, which only made a temporary retreat, rustling over the mat and dried grass with the crisp tread of mice, and scaring away sleep for some hours. Worse than these were the mosquitoes, also an imported nuisance, which stabbed and stung without any preliminary droning; and the heat was worse still, for thirteen human beings were lying on the floor and the door was shut. Had I known that two of these were lepers, I should have felt far from comfortable. As it was, I got up soon after midnight, and cautiously stepping among the sleeping forms, went out of doors. Everything favoured reflection, but I think the topics to which my mind most frequently reverted were my own absolute security - a lone white woman among "savages," and the civilizing influence which Christianity has exercised, so that even in this isolated valley, gouged out of a mountainous coast, there was nothing disagreeable or improper to be seen. The night was very still, but the sea was moaning; the river rippled very gently as it brushed past the reeds; there was a hardly perceptible vibration in the atmosphere, which suggested falling water and quivering leaves; and the air was full of a heavy, drowsy fragrance, the breath of orange flowers, perhaps, and of the night-blowing Cereus, which had opened its ivory urn to the moon.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 126 of 244
Words from 65186 to 65731 of 127766