OCEANIA — WOOD 385 



that I jotted down in my notebook from time to time, may appear to 

 be sentimental exaggerations and worthy of being classed with the 

 productions of South Sea "fakirs", but they were, at the time of ob- 

 servation at least, genuine impressions: One evening, half an hour 

 before sunset, when E. and I were on the deck of our steamer then 

 lying in the Papeete lagoon, she drew my attention to the fact that 

 the two large islands, Tahiti and Moorea, the latter 20 miles distant, 

 are admirably situated for displaying the wondrous magnificence of 

 a tropical sunset. And so it proved on that occasion. Between the 

 islands, in the roadstead, is a toy islet, with its quota of palms and 

 other trees, that does duty as a quarantine station. Some time after 

 the mountain peaks of Moorea obscured the setting sun, the weird and 

 loftier crags of Tahiti were brilliantly lighted by solar streamers 

 that seem to stretch across from the sister island. As the sun sank 

 below the true horizon and the shades of tropical evening deepened 

 into night all our surroundings — ocean, sky, mountains and islet — 

 became the scene of fairy-like kaleidoscopic, color transformations 

 that changed every minute, punctuated by the distant but regular 

 roar of the breakers on the barrier reef and the cool "whiffs" of the 

 delicious land breeze one may with confidence look for at nightfall in 

 most of the southern Tropics. We agreed that we had seen as lovely 

 sunsets elsewhere, but none with such a remarkable environment. 



Here is another note : Last August (at the end of the southern win- 

 ter) I wished to study (in their wild state) the beautiful fruit pigeons 

 of Fiji, and for that purpose took a native cutter bound for Kandavu, 

 a mountainous, volcanic island, the most southerly of the Viti group 

 and in the fifties an American whaling station of sorts. 



Kandavu is about 27 miles long, four wide, and lies 60 miles from 

 Viti Levu. This charming volcanic uplift is practically shut off 

 from the world. On it are only four or five white planters who have 

 no telephones or telegraph stations, no roads and no post offices 

 worth talking about. There is no communication with the other 

 islands except by occasional — very occasional — Fijian craft. Now 

 and then a native journeys from one village to another over ill- 

 kept jungle trails, almost impassable to Europeans. My artist com- 

 panion — a dextrous painter of animal life — and I put up at the 

 hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. M., educated English people and 

 the only Europeans on the western end of the island. Their house 

 was built on an eminence, itself surrounded by verdure-clad hills, 

 except toward the northwest, where an opening in the hilly amphi- 

 theater furnished a view of a beautiful bay. In its turn the bay was 

 protected and cut off from the ocean by a coral reef that continuously 

 threw up a succession of many-sounding breakers whose outlines were 

 plainly visible by contrast with the blue waters of the bay. Trees 

 of every tropical variety, both Avild and cultivated, covered the bowl 



