296 MYSTIC ISLES 



the transit of Venus in 1769, and it was there the first 

 English missionaries landed from the ship Duff to con- 

 vert the pagan Tahitians. Cook has a pillar, with a 

 plate of commemoration, in a grove of ^wraw-trees, 

 cocoanuts, pandanus, and the red oleander; Cook who 

 is an immortal, and was loved by a queen here. 



We left behind Paintua, Taunoa, Arahim, Arue and 

 Haapape, and came to a shore where no reef checked 

 the waves in a yeasty line a mile or less from the beach. 

 The breakers roared and beat upon a black shore, 

 strangely different from the Tahitian strand that I had 

 seen. For miles a hundred feet of sable rocks, pebbles, 

 some small and others as big as a man's hand, lay be- 

 tween the receded tide and the road, and all along huge 

 islets of somber stone defended themselves as best they 

 could against the attack of the surf. Signs of sur- 

 render showed in some, caverns and arches cut by the 

 constant hammer of swell and billow. 



Sugar-cane, vanilla, pineapples, coffee, bananas, 

 plantation after plantation, with the country houses of 

 Papeete's merchants, officials, lawyers, and doctors, 

 moved past our vehicle, and, as we increased the dis- 

 tance from the capital, the beautiful native homes ap- 

 peared. 



Simple they were, with no windows or doors, mere 

 shelters, but cool and cheap, with no division of rooms, 

 and no furniture but the sleeping mats and a utensil or 

 two. Natives were seen cooking their simple meal of 

 fish and breadfruit, or only the latter. The fire was in 

 the gi'ound or under a grill of iron on stones. They 

 would not go hungry, for mango-trees lined the road, 

 and bananas, feis, and pineapples were to be had for the 

 taking. 



