OF THE SOUTH SEAS 425 



after the dawn breakfast. Mama Tetuanui cried a few 

 moments from the pangs of separation, and the chief 

 wrung my hand sorrowfully, though I was to be back 

 in a few days. 



From the reef at Mataiea I had glimpsed the south- 

 west of Tahiti, the lower edge of the handle of the fan- 

 shaped double isle, mountainous and abrupt in form, 

 and called commonly the presquile de Taiarapu. The 

 chief said that at the isthmus of Taravao, the junction 

 of the fan and handle, there was the Maison des Varos, 

 a famous roadhouse, kept by M. Butscher, where one 

 might have the best food in Tahiti if one notified the 

 host in advance. 



"One must wake him up," said Tetuanui. "He is 

 asleep most of the time." 



I wrote him a letter, and on the day appointed, Tatini 

 and I, barefooted, started. We went through Tetu- 

 anui's breadfruit-grove, and there, as wherever were 

 choice growths, I stopped to examine and admire. No 

 other tree except the cocoa equals the maori in useful- 

 ness and beauty. The cocoa will grow almost in the 

 sea and in any soil, but the breadfruit demands humus 

 and a slight attention. The cocoas flourish on hundreds 

 of atolls where man never sees them, but the maoris ask 

 a clearing of the jungle about their feet. The timber 

 of the breadfruit is excellent for canoes and for lumber, 

 and its leaves, thick and glossy, and eighteen inches 

 long by a foot broad, are of account for many purposes, 

 including thatch and plates. There are half a hundred 

 varieties, and each tree furnishes three or four crops a 

 year, hundreds of fruits as big and round as plum-pud- 

 dings, green or yellow on the tree, pitted regularly like a 



