338 MYSTIC ISLES 



limes, oranges, hadamiers, mangoes, and other trees 

 made a dense forest, and a hectare or more was planted 

 with vanilla-vines that grew on the false coffee of 

 which hedges were usually made. A hundred yards 

 away a stream meandered toward the sea, and there 

 women of the household sat and washed clothes. 



They had no taro planted, though there was much 

 about. Taro, the staple food of Hawaiians, either 

 simply boiled or fermented as poi, was not a decided 

 favorite in Tahiti. The natives thought it tasteless 

 compared with the fei, so rich in color and flavor. The 

 taro is a lily (Arum), and its great bulbs are the edible 

 part, though the tops of small ^aro-plants are delicious, 

 surpassing spinach, and we had them often on our table. 



Our customary meals at eleven and at six were of raw 

 oysters, shrimp, crabs, craw-fish, or lobsters; fish of 

 many kinds, chicken, breadfruit, I'i-apples stewed, 

 bananas, oranges, feis, cocoanuts, and sucking pigs. 

 The family ate sitting or squatting on the ground, but 

 I had a table and silver, glass and linen. It is the way 

 of the Tahitian. The big house, well furnished, was not 

 inhabited by the chief's family. It was their monument 

 of success. They slept in one of several houses they had 

 near by, and their elegant dishes were unused except for 

 white guests. 



On the beach at the river's mouth the heron sat or 

 stalked solemnly, and the tern flew about the reef. The 

 white litae lived about the cocoanut-trees. 



From the broad veranda in front was a view of the 

 sea, and all day and night the breakers beat upon the 

 reef a mile away, now as soft as the summer wind in the 

 lime-trees of Seville, and again loud as winter in the 



