428 MYSTIC ISLES 



the fulsome praise of them by the pious thieves of that 

 region who sell them. It would be impossible and cruel, 

 I reflected, to convey to those extravagants in adjectives 

 the richness of herbage and the brilliancy of scene about 

 the isthmus. The vegetation was ampler than anywhere 

 else in Tahiti. 



The tamanu-, the hotu-, and the mape-irees were in 

 abundance. The tamanu yields tacamac, a yellow, res- 

 inous substance with a strong odor and a bitter, aromatic 

 taste, that is used as incense and in ointments. The 

 Tahitians call the tamanu the healing-tree. It grows 

 just above high water on any kind of shore, embowering, 

 with dark foliage, and peculiarly easeful in midday on 

 the hot sands. I have had a tamanu-\esii soaked in fresh 

 water laid upon my eye inflamed by too long a vigil in 

 the sun on the reef. The small gray ball within its 

 round green fruit affords a greenish oil that is a liniment 

 of wizardry for bruises, stiffness, rheumatism, and fevers. 

 In every house was a gourd stored with it. 



The mape, the Tahitian chestnut, grew farther from 

 the water, a powerful, commanding figure, with flowers 

 of sublimated sweetness, and with it the tiairi, or tutui- 

 tree, covered with blossoms, like white lilac, and bearing 

 nuts with oily kernels. It is the candlenut-tree, which 

 has furnished lights for Tahitians since they wandered 

 to these latitudes. The nuts are baked to make brittle 

 their shell, and the kernels of walnut size easilj^ extracted 

 and pierced. Strung on the midrib of a palm-leaf, the 

 combination makes wax and wick, and has lighted many 

 a council and many a dance in Polynesia. 



The pandanus likes the coral sand, and is in appear- 

 ance a tree out of a dream. It grows twenty feet high 



