MYSTIC ISLES 341 



lands to gain by the slower industry of other peoples. 

 "Birds that live on cows," the Tahitians call the minas, 

 because where there are enough ruminants each bird se- 

 lects one, and spends the day upon its back, eating the 

 insects that infest its skin. 



The sun at six barely lit the beach and revealed the 

 lagoon, into which a stream from the mountains poured 

 within Tetuanui's confines. I threw off my garment 

 and plunged into a pool under a clump of pandanus- 

 trees. It was cool enough at that hour to give the sur- 

 face nerves the slight shock I craved, but warmed as I 

 lay in the limpid water and watched the light sweeping 

 past the reef in the swift way of the tropics. 



I danced upon the beach and pursued the land crabs 

 to their burrows. I hoped to see one wrench off a leg 

 to prove what I had been told — that if one in its move- 

 ment to the salt water through the tall grass beyond the 

 sand, touched any filth, it clawed off the polluted leg, 

 and that a crab had been seen thus to deprive itself of 

 all its eight limbs, and after a bath to hobble back to its 

 hole with the aid of its claws, to remain until it had 

 grown a complement of supports. I wondered why it 

 did not content itself with washing instead of mutilation. 

 To the biblical expounder it was an apt illustration of 

 "cutting off an offending member," as recommended in 

 the Book. 



At the house the family were preparing their first 

 meal, and I shared it with them — oranges, bananas, cof- 

 fee, and rolls. The last, with the New Zealand tinned 

 butter, came from the Chinese store. We sat on mats, 

 and we drank from small bowls. The coffee was sweet- 

 ened with their own brown sugar, and the juice of nearly 



