136 MYSTIC ISLES 



the mountain goat, the abiding-place of bats and other 

 creatures of the night. Moorea's fortress conjured up 

 the vision of it, its wondrous ramparts and unscalable 

 precipices strangely the counterpart of the Latin castle. 



But if one dropped one's eyes from the hills, gone was 

 the recollection of aught of Europe. There was a scene 

 which only the lavish colors of the tropics could furnish. 

 The artist had spilled all his shades of green upon the 

 palette, and so delicately blended them that they melted 

 into one another in a very enchantment of green. The 

 valleys were but darker variants of the emerald scheme. 



The confused mass of lofty ridges resolved into 

 chasms and combes, dark, sunless ravines, moist with the 

 spray of many waterfalls, which nearer became velvet 

 valleys of pale green, masses of foliage and light and 

 shadow. The mountains of Moorea were only half the 

 height of Tahiti's, but so artfully had they been piled in 

 their fantastic arrangement that they seemed as high, 

 though they were entirely different in their impress upon 

 the beholder. Tahiti from the sea was like a living be- 

 ing, so vivid, so palpitating was its contour and its color, 

 but Moorea, when far away, was cold and black, a beau- 

 tiful, ravishing sight, but like the avatars of a race of 

 giants that had passed, a sepulcher or monument of their 

 achievements and their end. 



As about .Tahiti, a silver belt of reef took the rough 

 caresses of the lazy rollers, and let the glistening surf 

 break gently on the beach. Along this wall of coral, 

 hidden, but charted by its crown of foam, we ran for 

 miles until we found the gateway — the blue buckle of the 

 belt, it appeared at a distance. 



Within the lagoon the guise of the island was more 



