IV 



A Paradise 75 



boulders of lava, with the loveliest butterflies flitting 

 around me, when, all of a sudden, to m}- unutterable 

 astonishment, I came plump on a live Bishop — the 

 serpent ! He told me that I was meandering about 

 his private garden. 



' I've had but poor sport fishing, but the fish, as 

 in all these islands, are exquisite. There were some 

 strange, beautiful, orange-coloured fellows with the 

 most extraordinary action in the water, and the 

 glorious ultramarine and emerald darlings in swarms, 

 I should have done famously had they bitten but 

 half as well as the infernal black mosquitoes — 

 imported, like the Bishop. It would be dififlcult to 

 find a finer pose for a sculptor than that assumed by 

 a Kanaka, fishing by night, as he bends over the water 

 with his torch in one hand and his fish-spear in the 

 other. The " roundliness " and development of the 

 upper part of the back and arms are superb, and, 

 when not disfigured by elephantiasis, the lower leg 

 is very beautiful : infinitely better than the coarse 

 Irish-chairmanish legs of the ]\Iaori. 



' Last Wednesday we went to the plantation of a 

 Mr. Stewart at Atimaono on the other side of the 

 island, and stayed two days there in great bliss. 

 The loveliness of the scenery through which we 

 passed on the way thither is simply not to be told. 

 Through a tropical forest we drove, with here and 

 there a gap through which we could look, on the one 

 side, at the sea, — deepest, yet brightest blue, — then 

 a line of dazzling surf, and then a band of still, clear 



