384 MYSTIC ISLES 



nally she put him back in her ipu and returned to the 

 house of Tahu-Tahu. She told her misfortune, and 

 Tahu-Tahu made passes and thrashed about with the 

 sacred ^i-leaves, and commanded her to put Faaraianuu 

 in the lake again. This she did, and he stayed, but even 

 now, if you put a cocoanut in this lake at this spot, it 

 will come out at the spring in Arue. The eel still has 

 power over that spring." 



Tiura spoke in Tahitian and French, and I handed on 

 his narrative. 



"The eel in Tahiti, from what I hear, has seen better 

 days," commented the Queensland doctor. "All over 

 the world the primitive people endowed this humble 

 form of animal — the serpentine — with a cunning and 

 supernatural power surpassing that of the four-footed 

 creatures. I think it was because in the cradle of the 

 human family there were so many hurts from the bites 

 of snakes and sea-eels — they could n't guard against 

 them — that man salved his wounds by crediting his 

 enemy with devilish qualities. That 's the probable 

 origin of the garden of Eden myth." 



Again Tiura spoke of the Scorpion in the sky, and I 

 knew he desired to talk of Pipiri Ma. The other Tahi- 

 tians were already under the roof on their backs, upon 

 the soft bed of dried leaves gathered by them for all of 

 us, but the long, lean physician listened with unabated 

 interest. He had run away for a change from the des- 

 ert-like interior of his vast island, where he treated the 

 ills of a large territory of sheep-herders, and to be on 

 this mountain under such a benignant canopy, and to 

 hear the folk-lore of the most fascinating race on earth, 

 was to him worth foregoing sleep all night. 



