228 MYSTIC ISLES 



mosses, all sparkling in the sun with the million drops 

 of the vaimato. 



We withdrew a few paces from the vapor, and found 

 a place on the edge of the brook to have our fruit and, 

 perhaps, a siesta. A carpet of moss and green leaves 

 made a couch of Petronian ease, and we threw ourselves 

 upon it with the weariness of six miles afoot uphill in 

 the tropics. It was not hot like the summer heat of 

 New York, for Tahiti has the most admirable climate I 

 have found the world over, but at midday I had felt the 

 warmth penetratingly. Noanoa Tiare made nothing of 

 it, but suggested that we both leap into the tarn. 



I knew a moment of squeamishness, echo of the im- 

 morality of my catechism and my race conventions. I 

 felt almost aghast at finding myself alone with that 

 magnificent creature in such a paradisiacal spot. I 

 wondered what thoughts might come to me. I had 

 danced with her, I had talked with her under the stars, 

 but what might she expect me not to do? And what 

 was an Occidental, a city man, before her? She retired 

 behind a bird's-nest fern, on the long, lanceolate leaves 

 of which were the shells of the mountain snail. At her 

 feet was the bastard canna, the pungent root of which 

 makes Chinese curry. 



When she emerged, she was an amazing and enchant- 

 ing personage. She had removed her gown, and wore 

 a pareu of muslin, with huge scarlet leaves upon white. 

 She was tall and voluptuously formed, but she had made 

 the loin-cloth, two yards long and a yard wide, cover 

 her in a manner that was modest, though revealing. It 

 was the art of her ancestors, for this was the shape of 

 their common garment of tapa, a native cloth. With a 



