276 MYSTIC ISLES 



There are crabs and crawfish, eels and shrimps, 

 prawns and varos, all hung up on strings. There are 

 oysters and maoao, alive and dripping. The maoao is 

 the turbo, a gastropod, a mysterious inhabitant of a 

 twisted shell, who shuts the door to his home with a 

 brightlj^-colored operculum, for all the world like half 

 of a cuff -button. One eats him raw or cooked or dried. 

 But he is not so odd as the varo, one of the most delicious 

 and expensive of Tahitian foods. These sea centipedes, 

 as the English call them in Tahiti, are a species of 

 ihacus, and are from six to twelve inches long, and two 

 wide. They have legs or feelers all along their sides, 

 like a pocket comb, a hideous head, and tail, and a gen- 

 erally repulsive appearance. If one did not know they 

 were excellent eating, and most harmless in their habits, 

 one would be tempted to run or take to a tree at sight of 

 them. Their shell is a translucent yellow, with black 

 markings. The female has a red stripe down her back, 

 and red eggs beneath her. She is richer in flavor, and 

 more deadly than the male to one who has a natural 

 diathesis to poisoning by varos. Many whites cannot 

 eat them. Some lose appetite at their looks, their like- 

 ness to a gigantic thousand-leg. Others find that the 

 varo rests uneasy within them, as though each claw or 

 tooth of the comb grasped a vital part of their anatomy. 

 I think varos excellent when wrapped in hotu leaves, 

 and gi'illed as a lobster. I take the beastie in my fingers 

 and suck out the meat. Amateurs must keep their eyes 

 shut during this operation. 



Catching varos is tedious and requires skill. They 

 live in the sand of the beach under two or three feet of 

 water. One has to find their holes by wading and peer- 



