222 MYSTIC ISLES 



officer made a bruit about a poor little Tahitian girl! 

 We will talk about her when we are at dejeuner/' 



Dejeuner! My heart leaped. Whence would the 

 luncheon come? Had this child of Tahiti arranged be- 

 forehand that she should be met by a jinn with sand- 

 wiches and cakes ? I dared not ask. 



We pushed on, and passed many residences of natives. 

 They were almost all of European construction, board 

 cottages, because the houses of native sort are forbidden 

 within the municipal limits. Beyond them we saw no 

 houses. The Tahitian families were cooking their 

 breakfasts, brought from the market, on little fires out- 

 side their houses. They all smiled, and called to us to 

 partake with them. 



"la ora na! Haere mai amur 



"Greeting! Come eat with us!" 



They looked happy in the sunshine, the smoke curl- 

 ing about them in milky wreaths, the men naked except 

 for parens, and the children quite as born. Fragrance 

 of the Jasmine answered all with pleasant badinage, 

 and each must know whither we were bound. They 

 thought it not at all odd, apparently, that a princess of 

 their race should be going to the waterfalls with a for- 

 eigner, and they beamed on me to assure me of their in- 

 terest and understanding. 



The broad avenue lessened into a broken road, roofed 

 by many kinds of trees. Though the sun ascended 

 from the ocean on the other side of Tahiti above the fan- 

 tastic peak of Maiauo, it had not shed a beam upon the 

 ferns and mosses. The guava was a dense growth. 

 Like the lantana of Hawaii and Ceylon, imported to 

 Tahiti to fill a want, it had abused hospitality, and be- 



