OF THE SOUTH SEAS 435 



the white oleander, the cool gray-green hibiscus with 

 lemon-colored blossoms, the yellow allamanda, the 

 trmnpet lily, acacias, lilac ipomaea, tree ferns, and huge 

 bird's-nest ferns mingled with white convolvulus, and 

 over all lifted groves of cocoas and the symmetrical 

 breadfruit. 



In this surrounding was a wooden house, built partly 

 over the water, so that a seaward veranda extended into 

 the lagoon, high on posts, and commanded a view of the 

 sea and the mountain. I saw on this veranda a more 

 arresting figure of a white man than I had before come 

 upon in Tahiti. His body, clothed only in a pareu, 

 was very brown, but his light beard and blue eyes proved 

 his Nordic strain. He was of medium size, powerful, 

 with muscles rounded, but evident, under his satin skin, 

 and with large hands and feet. He was reading a book, 

 and as I ambled by, he raised his head and looked at 

 me with a serious smile. 



I checked the hoi'se, and tied him to a candlenut-tree. 

 I felt that I had arrived at the end of my journey. 



I spent the remainder of the day and the night there. 

 The man and his wife were as stars on a black night, as 

 music to a blind bard. His name was Nicolai Lermon- 

 toff, born in Moscow, and his wife was an American, 

 Alaska her place of birth, and of residence most of her 

 life. They were each about forty years old, and of ex- 

 traordinary ease of manner and feHcity of expression. 



''Muy simpatica/' had said the old Gipsy at the Gen- 

 eralife in Granada when I had spoken bolee with him. 

 Lermontoff shook hands with me. His was as hard as 

 leather, calloused as a sailor's or a miner's, and so con- 



